North emerge victorious at DreamHack Valencia
The latest iteration of the DreamHack Open tournament series saw North demonstrate their newfound potential for dominance.
North effortlessly swept Luminosity Gaming with a 2-0 victory in the grand final at DreamHack Valencia, taking home their $50,000 share of the total $100,000 prize pool.
The city of Valencia, Spain served as hub for the two-day event. Five invited teams were in attendance, joined by three qualifiers: Fragsters from the European Qualifier, Luminosity Gaming from the North American Qualifier, and Giants Gaming from the Iberian Qualifier.
Group A saw Heroic winning both of their matches, with a 16-9 win against AGO and 16-10 result over North. North themselves had a good run, defeating Giants 16-8 and AGO 2-1 in the decider match. AGO and Giants were thus dropped out of their group in 3rd and 4th place respectively.
Group B saw Fragsters take the top spot in their group. Luminosity Gaming took second place, eliminating 16-10 in the Opening Match and G2 Esports 2-1 in the Decider Match. G2’s only win of the tournament was a 2-0 sweep against Virtus.pro, while the Polish squad did not win a single match.
The Semifinals went much as expected, with North topping Fragsters 2-0 and Luminosity eliminating Heroic 2-1, leading to a North versus Luminosity final.
Some major roster changes took place prior to this tournament, making things a little more interesting for the teams involved. In June, Luminosity Gaming replaced Vinícios “PKL” Coelho and Gustavo “SHOOWTiME” Gonçalves with brothers Henrique “HEN1” Teles Lucas “LUCAS1” Teles. Meanwhile, North announced that Oscar “mixwell” Cañellas Colocho would be taking the place of Daniel “mertz” Mertz for the duration of the tournament, claiming in an interview that they “needed to try out something different” to better their CT side.
The next DreamHack Open event will be DreamHack Montreal, which is scheduled to get underway on September 7.
Jared Wynne
About Jared Wynne
Jared Wynne is the Editor-in-Chief at WIN.gg, overseeing its content. He has been working in digital media for over two decades, most often in and around the gaming industry. His all-time favorite games include Baldur’s Gate, Doom, and Counter-Strike, but he’ll play just about anything that seems interesting. His previous credits include The Daily Dot, The Esports Observer, GameLand, and more.
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