By Tomi “lurppis" Kovanen



An eight-team Counter-Strike: Global Offensive field will be competing for $100,000 in prizes at DreamHack Austin, the third DreamHack event in 2016 to feature CS:GO and the very first DreamHack on U.S. soil.

While European teams have elected to skip over the event in Texas, the competition features two Brazilian squads who live in California, North America’s top three teams, and a couple of interesting challengers. Here’s how we expect it to shake out once the event kicks off on Friday.



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(Photo: Luminosity/Facebook)

Luminosity (coldzera, FalleN, fer, fnx, TACO)

Luminosity are the only elite team attending the tournament in Austin, and as such they’re the clear favorites to win it all.

Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo’s team greatly underperformed at DreamHack Masters Malmo in mid-April, mere weeks after winning the most recent major in Columbus, but have otherwise been a model of consistency. Since completing this roster with the additions of Lincoln “fnx” Lau and Epitacio “TACO” Pessoa in late November, the team has – excluding the outliers in Malmo – only lost best-of-three series offline to Fnatic and Na`Vi, the world’s other top teams. But competitors are hopeful the slip-up in Sweden was not as much of a fluke as it seems to be.

Led by Marcelo “coldzera” David, the team is undefeated in ECS’s inaugural season (played online against North Americans, the teams they will face in Austin) and finished ESL Pro League’s third season with a dominant 18-4 record that featured two forfeit losses and a loss versus Winterfox due to DDoS issues. In other words, Luminosity are near-perfect against North Americans with this roster. They possess more firepower than their opponents, and in-game leader FalleN is arguably the best tactician in the game today. They also have the most consistent roster of the teams in attendance.

It is hard to see how anyone can crack the code to beating Luminosity here, and given the disappointing showing in Malmo, they should be ready to win it all in Texas.

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(Photo: Gustavo Gonçalves)

Tempo Storm (boltz, felps, HEN1, lucas, SHOOWTiME)

The other Brazilian team living in California have broken through as a legitimate top ten team over the past two months.

Led by Henrique “HEN1” Teles’ sniping, the team upset Virtus.pro and EnVyUs at IEM Katowice while playing close games against Astralis and Na`Vi, the latter in a playoff series. At DreamHack Masters Malmo, they again upset EnVyUs, but suffered losses to Virtus.pro, and the Frenchmen they defeated earlier. And finally, this past weekend at CEVO Gfinity Pro Season 9 Finals, they won their first international title over SK, Dignitas and Virtus.pro.

Tempo Storm have been passed over for invitations for ECS and ELEAGUE, both multi-million dollar tournaments. To say they have a chip on their shoulder would be an understatement, and they have played accordingly. This is simply the second best team residing in North America, and should be favored to make the grand final in Austin.

But their consistency is an issue, as best-of-ones require teams to perform at all times. Tempo Storm are the most interesting team to watch out for in Austin, as seeing them will help us determine whether they have truly leveled up in the standings or if their win in London was a bit of a fluke.

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