We have reached the final stage of DreamHack Masters Marseille today with Gambit completing the list of teams who will be playing at Le Dôme de Marseille starting tomorrow.

Quarterfinals Matchups

After closing the group stage, DreamHack announced the match-ups for the quarterfinals. See below:

Match Previews

Natus Vincere v Mousesports

One of the worst opponents for the first draw of playoffs for Mousesports. Natus Vincere is surely looking to do some damage to mouz.

This rematch of DreamHack Winter 2017 surely is looking way hotter than it was back then.

Oskar, ropz and suNNy carrying the Mouz falir or s1mple, Flamie and Electronic with the Na’Vi banner. No matter the result, this match guarantees a great opening for the playoffs.

We don’t see any team giving it up, so overtimes are expected even on team’s own map picks. There’s a slightly rivalry here that will only grow healthy from this encounter.

We expect to see the following maps being played:

Nuke being the map pick for Mouz;

Na’Vi should go for Inferno or Overpass , depending on Mouz first ban.

Train being the decider.

Cloud9 v Gambit

Cloud9 managed to snap a playoff spot earlier after quickly beating Mouz and they couldn’t ask for a better draw in the playoffs.

While Gambit surprised Liquid, it will be way harder to do the same against Cloud9. This time, their opponents don’t have a weak T-side as Liquid, nor a lack of tactical lead in-game.

C9 however shouldn’t celebrate early. AdreN showed today why he had a place amongst the best players in top 20 last year. Tarik, RUSH and especially Skadoodle won’t have the luxury to fail here.

We expect to see the following maps being played:

Cloud9 pick Overpass .

Gambit pick Cache .

Train as the decider

Astralis v FaZe

Astralis certainly was looking at FaZe for a possible matchup. FaZe now don’t have a proper supporting player and glaive knows how to exploit this weakness.

This said, gla1ve isn’t known for disrespecting their opponents and this makes things even more difficult for FaZe.

If GuardiaN stays quiet for most of the game like he did in their match against Cloud9, Astralis will have this game on their hands.

We expect to see the following maps being played:

Cache for Astralis

Overpass for FaZe

Inferno as the decider

FNATIC vs Ninjas in Pyjamas

The Swedish brawl will be set early in the playoffs and is a contender to be one of the most interesting matches of tomorrow.

FNATIC comes in with KRIMZ providing a one-man-army and NiP brings forest and his firepower backed by all the expertise of Dennis in the lead role.

If Flusha surges in as he did in WESG and in Katowice early this year, surely NiP will be in a pickle. However, KRIMZ alone won’t be able to take on Draken and forest. It will be all about what FNATIC we will be seeing.

We expect to see the following maps being played:

Overpass coming from NiP.

Cobblestone coming from FNATIC

Inferno as the decider

Here’s a quick preview of what happened before the quarterfinals match-ups, let’s look at which teams made it here.

The Top Four

Cloud9

Cloud9 was the first team to qualify for the playoffs stage at Marseille. The team had a hard time trying to close their first game against G2, however, they managed to win with a 22 – 19 score in double overtime.

On the second day, their opponents were FaZe Clan. Labelled as the underdogs, the North American powerhouse surprised everyone. Cloud9 managed to sweep FaZe in the first two maps.

It was certainly disputed, but it was clear that C9 had something that FaZe lacked. FNS, the newest player in the squad and the new in-game leader was able to properly use ‘Skadoodle’ which gave them a hefty advantage, while Tarik provided the backbones for the team.

To finish the series, ‘RUSH’ took over in the second map when his team most needed. It’s clear that things are flowing very well for C9 now. A question remains yet, can Cloud9 take over the likes of Mousesports and Na’Vi?

Ninjas in Pyjamas

So far at Marseille, NiP have had a easy ride. Their opponent, SK Gaming, played really well and almost took the match. If not by the entire roster excelling in their respective positions, it certainly would have been a SK win.

If things were hard on day 1, the second day was even harder. Playing against the favorites of the group, Mousesports, NiP managed to once again excel in all areas and upset the Mouz squad in the decider map.

Dennis and GeT_RiGhT are playing in a manor that we haven’t saw in a long time. It was all about smart plays in the decider map and those two surely outclassed their opponents.

After a cool down post Oakland, NiP is looking to go to the top once again. Marking the Swedes as underdogs or an easy challenge certainly is a misstep for any team.

Natus Vincere

Natus Vincere didn’t have problems escaping the quicksand pool that was their group. Beating up Renegades and then the favorites of group C, FNATIC, gave them an early spot in the playoffs.

While on day one Na’Vi had a comfortable matchup, beating FNATIC, the following day was a surprise. Coming as an even bigger surprise was ‘Edward’ following ‘s1mple’ to bring the victory to the CIS team.

During the entire Bo3, Edward played really well, differently from the quiet player that we saw in the last months who often had a negative score in the end of matches.

The legendary player really came alive when s1mple needed help in the decider map. During Overpass, Edward made up a stronghold by himself in the CT-side which made Na’Vi sides be almost impenetrable.

Instead of being shaken by the tentative of buyout of ‘s1mple’ and ‘flamie’, Na’Vi instead is looking up to be champions with those two on their side.

Astralis

The least unexpected result came from group D. Astralis, the favorites of the group managed to destroy Space Soldiers and take out Liquid without major problems.

During their best of three matchup against Liquid, Astralis only lost Mirage in a very disputed confront. Mirage was Liquid map pick, and when it came to the following two maps, the opposition was smashed.

Astralis didn’t had any problems winning both Overpass and Cache, closing both maps with a 16 – 3 scoreline.

It’s hard to point out a single MVP in the whole series since the entire team played very well. Even Xyp9x, who was looking fairly underwhelming before Marseille broke through.

For their opponents, this new Astralis is extremely worrying and dangerous. Magisk, device and gla1ve are performing extremely well. Dupreeh still is amongst the best Danish players and Xyp9x is back to the reliable supportive player that he ever was.

The raw skill and tactical prowess of this team is overwhelmingly good. Astralis is a heavy candidate to take out the title at Marseille.

The Last Four

FaZe Clan

It’s hard to expect something big from FaZe here. Playing with Xizt, they failed to impress against Cloud9 and only had to beat EnVyUs two time to advance to the playoffs.

Olofmeister certainly is being missed by the team at this point. NiKo, Rain and GuardiaN now are playing without backbones to support their brute force and this cost them their match against Cloud9 and certainly would cost them in matches versus Astralis and NiP here.

It will be interesting to see how Karrigan will be dealing with this from now on. Shall he try to make Xizt more useful in other positions, or he will still try to hold him in the same positions that olof played?

Mousesports

Ninjas in Pyjamas caused upset yesterday. However ChrisJ, mousesports in-game leader, kept moral up. During both Valiance and SK Gaming, mouz showed that they still need to fix their usual second half choke.

In both matches, Mouz finished the first half of every map comfortably. Only to see the match being handed to their opponents in the following 15 rounds. It’s hard to point why? Maybe Oskar choice of weapons when the team has the upper hand didn’t help close the matches.

Their dominance in the first halves doesn’t come from pure luck though. In their game against SK, ropz & co. dominated the game.

They exploited ‘coldzera’ positioning as they wanted, shut ‘fer’ and ‘FalleN’ most of times and took map control as they needed and wanted to. This shows why they deserve a place amongst the best in the world right now.

FNATIC

Fnatic started the tournament with a revenge against TyLoo. The game was pretty one-sided for the Swedes and they comfortably took out the match in their favor. They couldn’t do the same against Natus Vincere though.

During their Winner’s Match against Na’Vi, it was all about KRIMZ versus s1mple, and while the last one got support from his team for the entire match, FNATIC couldn’t do the same every round.

Lekr0 certainly wasn’t playing to his best there. The Swede has a rating of 0.87 in the match and remained pretty quiet thorughout the tournament.

In the Decider’s Match, Renegades put on a fight. The Australians picked up a comeback in the first map but couldn’t live to it once FNATIC got their game together.

In the quarter-finals, FNATIC must help KRIMZ to beat NiP and the entire team will have to perform if they want to pass Astralis.

Gambit

Space Soldiers didn’t live up to the dark horse title in group D. Fortunately, Gambit took the title for themselves. The CIS team who had a disappointing campaign after adding seized surprised everyone beating Team Liquid in the decider match.

During Gambit’s match against Liquid it was clear as day what they can do with a capable IGL. And in that specifically encounter, seized was doing his part. It’s hard to predict what Gambit will do next, but certainly a quarter-final exit isn’t half bad.

While Gambit should be the least favorite between the eight teams advancing, they’ve put on a great fight. If any team don’t take them seriously they can pull an upset.

It’s worth mentioning their match against Liquid. Gambit managed to keep their calm in critical situations and counted heavily on Dosia, AdreN and Hobbit as their playmakers while mou took a quieter role in the formation which worked really well.

In the end it will be all about seized now. Will him be reliable in the upcoming matches just as he was in the group stage? If yes, Gambit can return to be a threat. But this is a big if here.

You will be able to follow all our detailed predictions for the upcoming matches at DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 here.