DreamHack Masters Dallas kicks off today | Groups analysis and predictions

The first of the DH Masters event is set to kick off today at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. Sixteen teams will battle for $250,000 in Prize funds and the Corsair DH Masters trophy.

The teams are divided in two groups of eight, and will play a double-elimination format (GSL) bracket. Today’s initial matches are best-of-one and all following matches will feature a best of three format. With the tournament bracket information in mind, let us analyze both groups and predict the likely winners in each scenario.

Group A of the DreamHack Masters Dallas

Group A has an edge over the other group in terms of team strength. Teams Liquid, Vitality, FaZe and NiP head-up the stronger seed factor in the opening matches versus Lucid Dreams, North, Windigo and Tyloo respectively.

This also means we might witness a repeat of the Liquid versus Vitality final at cs_summit 4 which they played just two days ago. The way the bracket is set up they are set to meet in Round 2 if they win their opening matches. The rest of the group will feature FaZe Clan’s bid at returning to form after an unlucky turn of events at IEM Sydney and a week of underperformance at the ECS Season 7. The Ninjas in Pyjamas have had a good run at Blast Pro Series Madrid and subsequent matches. They might be facing FaZe early on and with a stand-in player after NiP announced a day before the event that Dennis “dennis” Edman might miss the opening matches.

From the lower seeds in Group A, Windigo and North might a theoretical chance of getting to the quarterfinals, but given the recent form of the top teams in Group A, the odds are low. Tyloo and Lucid Dreams can hope to get some good practice in a bo3 scenario versus the world’s top CS:GO seeds.

With the way the bracket is set up in Group A, we can expect teams Liquid, Vitality and NiP (If dennis makes it) advancing.

Group B of the DreamHack Masters Dallas

Group B has the lower overall seeding from the teams in this group but all of the teams are very close in relative strength and seeding. This should guarantee a lot more competitiveness and action than the opposite group. At the top of the group we have ENCE with a pretty clear run all the way to semifinals. They will face Isurus in the opener and face either Renegades or G2 in their first best-of-three. With Gratisfaction retuning to actively play in the Renegades lineup, I am favoring RNG vs G2 in this matchup.

The remaining two opener matches in Group B will feature the NA home squads of NRG and C9 face off against FURIA and fnatic respectively. Judging recent performance NRG and Fnatic are likely to get ahead and meet each other in the follow-up best-of-three.

It is likely that we will see ENCE, Fnatic and Renegades advance forward from Group B.

Note: The top seed from each group will advance directly to the semifinals while the 2nd and 3rd seeds will go to a quarterfinals elimination bracket.

The action is set to begin at 18:30 CEST at Twitch.tv/dreamhackcs.