First place and $100,000 – fnatic, second and $50,000 – Luminosity, 3-4 places and $25,000 – TSM And Virtus.pro, 5-6 places and $15,000 — NiP And Liquid, 7-8 places and $10,000 — EnVyUs And Legacy. The next and last $250,000 major tournament of the season is ESL ESEA Pro League Season 2, which will take place 10 – 13 December in California.

Match recordings appeared on the DH channel (English) and on the GS channel (Russian).

DreamHack Open Winter in Jonkoping (Sweden) was held under the auspices of the FACEIT League, which held its own qualifiers on three continents: Europe, America and Australia. The winners in Europe received five places (these are EnVyUs, TSM, Virtus.pro, NiP and fnatic), in America – two (Luminosity and Liquid), in Australia – one (Legacy, former Animal Squad). Thus, eight teams participated in the tournament, which made up two groups.

Once upon a time, back in the time of CS 1.6, the group stages were completely different. All teams simply played each other in turns, and then those with the most points left the group (a win counted as three points, a draw as one). If several teams had an equal number of points, then the rounds won were counted. This system led to the fact that teams had to play, and spectators had to watch rather boring matches, which often could not in any way affect their exit from the group.

The first CS:GO tournaments used the same system (and FACEIT, for example, used it in the qualifiers for this tournament – and in the Oceania group they received 4 teams equal in points. Stone Age!), but a year or two later the cunning Finn Tomi Kovanen, nicknamed lurppis, proposed playing group matches as if they were play-offs with a double bracket.

The new system worked like this: two teams play each other by lot until one of them wins (there were no draws in this system, and then it completely disappeared from CS), then the team that won plays the winner of the other pair. The one that lost seems to fall into the lower bracket and there fights with the same “loser”. The one who loses a second time is eliminated; the one who wins then plays with the loser in the upper bracket (at this point I lost 100% of the audience).

At first glance it seems cumbersome, but in fact it is a very elegant solution that allowed us to get rid of unnecessary matches and added spice (and meaning) to the group stages.

I’ve taken the liberty of sketching out an extremely (hehe) simple outline of the group stages below, but if you find it confusing, there’s another one on hltv. In fact, as the empty spaces are filled, the game system should become clearer. In theory.

Group A: Virtus.pro, Legacy, Liquid, TSM

The flags of Poland, Australia, the USA, Denmark, France, Sweden and Brazil are in the public domain, the authorship is indicated in the links.

Group B: EnVyUs, NiP, Luminosity, fnatic

The flags of Poland, Australia, the USA, Denmark, France, Sweden and Brazil are in the public domain, the authorship is indicated in the links.

How it was:

15:00 Virtus.pro — Legacy BO1, cbble 16 – 12
What to remember about experienced players? That they are swinging for a long time. Legacy were able to take the first 6 rounds on defense largely because the Poles allowed them to do so. Despite this, Legacy showed a very good game, especially when they made a small comeback on the score 15 – 10. Although they expected to lose this match, they still managed to finish the game with a decent result. Impressive!

16:30 Liquid — TSM BO1, overpass 0 – 16
Oh, honeys… On the score 0 – 10, I even started rooting for the Americans, it was so sad to watch this match. But it didn’t help. It’s been a long time since there was a first half like this.

18:00 Virtus.pro — TSM BO1, mirage 13 – 16
The Poles still know how to surprise. Give 10 rounds in a row, finish the half with 3-12, buy naked Glocks in the first pistol round and take out the round. And then ten more. But, unfortunately, TSM coped with the Polish five and are leaving the group. Virtus.pro tomorrow evening will play a decisive match with the winner of the Legacy/Liquid pair (BO3).

19:30 EnVyUs — NiP BO1, mirage 8 – 16

The confrontation between NBK and GeT_RiGhT lasts as long as CS:GO has existed. Maybe they decided to bring something new into their relationship? 🙂

Despite the score, this is one of the most beautiful games to date. It looks like f0rest has regained his form, and allu has firmly settled into the role of a full-time sniper. The French also demonstrated serious shooting, but alas, it seems that mirage is not their card. At least today.

21:30 Luminosity — fnatic BO1, dust2 0 – 16
It’s a bitter irony that Luminosity suffered the same fate as every American team that played against fnatic over the past year, even though the Brazilians won the American qualifier. However, the score is too crushing even for the American team. Let’s hope this loss doesn’t have too much of an impact on their future play.

22:30 NiP — fnatic BO1, dust2 4 – 16
Very tough match. NiP kept fnatic under pressure all the time, even during their ecos, but this did not help them gain more than four rounds. It looks like dennis has successfully joined the team and is showing good results. Looking forward to tomorrow’s matches. And that’s all for today 🙂

14:00 Legacy – Liquid VO3 0 – 2, cbble 8 – 16, cache 11 – 16
A little disappointed – I expected more from Legacy. There was one moment on cache when it seemed that Australia’s team would be able to succumb, but Plant A never succumbed to them. They tried very hard, but Hiko the pistol man turned out to be stronger. Legacy goes home, Liquid plays next.

17:00 EnVyUs – Luminosity VO3 1 – 2, mirage 6 – 16, cbble 16 – 8, inferno 11 – 16
A small sensation – Luminosity beat EnVyUs, the champion of the previous DH in Cluj-Napoca. In my opinion, the French were let down by excessive self-confidence – already losing on mirage, they continued to buy failed forcebuys. Of course, an incredible personal skill brings beautiful victories, but this is not enough. However, I declare the hero of today’s match KennyS – one man army, he played great today.

20:00 Virtus.pro-Liquid VO3 2 – 0, overpass 16 – 6, mirage 16 – 8
The Poles showed a very coordinated game. This was especially evident on mirage – although Liquid drew the first half, they could not do anything with the Polish attack. If there were attempts at the third card, I didn’t notice them. Confident victory for Virtus.pro, we are waiting for their match with fnatic tomorrow in the semi-finals.

23:00 NiP – Luminosity VO3 1 – 2, mirage 10 – 16, cache 21 – 19, cbble 6 – 16
NiP put on a real show – three maps, Corvalol extras on cache and a very sad cobblestone at the end. But there was a second small sensation – the Brazilian team Luminosity is advancing to the semi-finals and will play against TSM tomorrow.

16:00 fnatic – Virtus.pro BO3 2 – 1, mirage 11 – 16, inferno 16 – 10, cache 16 – 9
The Poles started confidently, but the two cards after the mirage were similar, like twin sisters. Uncertain attacking play led to the fact that after the first half the Poles literally did not have enough rounds to scumbag normally. Taz on his Facebook* called the defeat at inferno “painful”. Well, fnatic are reaching the finals.

19:00 TSM – Luminosity BO3 1 – 2, mirage 16 – 5, overpass 6 – 16, inferno 17 – 21
As Anders would say: “What a show!» Two beautiful cards – a neat mirage and a fiery overpass, and then – inferno 14-15, and the last Luminosity fighter does not have time to defuse the bomb. In almost every round – a crazy headshot, Molotov, shooting from an ambush, knocking off the opponent’s head halfway across the map. I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to the finale.

23:35 Grand final: fnatic – Luminosity BO3 2 – 1, train 9 – 16, cbble 16 – 11, inferno 16 – 7
Still, the Brazilians didn’t pull it off a little! We can say that olofmeister stood in their way. And flusha. In general, the match turned out to be very interesting – we can say that two teams of approximately equal strength met, which seem to know each other very well. The latter, however, did not interfere with the entertainment of the action. Congratulations fnatic, DH was great.

First interviews from the tournament:

Legacy eSports (formerly known as Animal Squad) are taking part in DH Winter thanks to their win in the Oceania group over teams like Renegades and Immunity. The Australian and New Zealand squad has been bootcamping in Sweden for 10 days now and their coach James "sibe" Martin found some free time to introduce us to the team, their expectations and plans for the future.

Here is their interview:

Question: Let’s start with https://won66casino.co.uk/withdrawal/ the history of the team – how your roster was formed, what experience your players have?

Answer: The current lineup was formed just 3 months ago after some changes in the Australian scene. We took in Raz and Ofnu after Sibe retired from active play and became our coach.

A team led by Moku (one of the most successful players in Australia, who has repeatedly competed in various compositions on the international stage in discipline 1.6), combines both more experienced players and very young talents.

Busta, who, like Moku, has been playing CS since 1.6, brought his extensive experience and shooting skills to the team. Both Ofnu and Raz are from New Zealand (and are arguably the best players in the entire country).

Raz is versatile with awp, and Ofnu provides excellent reading of opponents. Mizu (formerly of COD4) is the team’s main supporter, providing consistent rifle shooting every game. His early years in competitive sports provided him with a very rare, reserved style of play.

Question: How are your roles distributed in the team?? Who is the leader, who is the sniper, who is the opener? Who should we watch and who could suddenly turn the round??

Answer: Roles are not deterministic. Raz and Busta, as snipers, can both deal significant damage, but you’ll likely see Raz sniper as the Terrors and Busta as the Counter more often. This is due to differences in individual play, which I’m sure will be noticeable in the upcoming tournament.

Ofnu is our captain and lurker (I don’t know how to translate this term into Russian. A lurker is a player like Get_RiGhT, he wanders around the map on his own and shoots all living things if the enemy allows him). The role of the opener is often divided between Moku and Mizu, however, with us any player can do this well. I don’t think many teams have that kind of versatility, usually everyone relies on one powerful player to turn rounds or get a lot of frags.

If you are asking who is the best person to watch during a match, then this question is quite difficult to answer. I suggest finding a player who embodies the style closest to you and rooting for him!

Question: You managed to lead the qualification for the FACEIT League Finals in a bitter struggle, defeating Renegades, Immunity and fSociety (all 4 teams had an equal number of victories in the group). Some people criticized the system for allowing you to win so easily and called it just luck. What do you think about this?

Answer: Of course, when the entire tournament is based on BO1, this is a situation that is far from ideal. I personally don’t really understand the reasons why Faceit held the tournament in this particular format. On the other hand, I am sure that every Australian CS fan is very grateful to the league for this opportunity for our teams.

Calling our victory luck is also wrong – we still confidently beat two absolute favorites, and then lost to teams that, if you look at it in retrospect, we should not have lost (and if we had not lost, there would have been no 4-way draw).

Question: The FACEIT League actually allowed Oceania teams to participate in an international tournament (we’re not talking about direct invites right now), how do you think that might affect the game in your region?? How high can the Australian team climb without playing the Renegades card?? And what would you change if you could?

Answer: I think the Australian scene is moving slowly but surely. Every invite Australia received motivated the entire gaming community to become more professional in every way.

Many teams – not just Renegades and Immunity – have recently begun to practice more harshly and this has already affected the results. Here are a couple of good examples: a) we are on DH, b) Chiefs beat Immunity at the last CyberGamer Pro League finals. Our scene has never been so competitive.

I would like to see more organizations operating in Australia. We had ESEA a while ago, but they couldn’t make any sane competitive system other than the already existing Open Ladder. Hopefully now that ESL has bought them we will see more new tournaments being launched. More tournaments equals more money, right?? If so, hopefully this will help reduce the number of teams and players leaving the country to pursue a career in eSports.

Question: Returning to the current tournament – you have been in Jonkoping for some time now. How was your flight?? We’ve heard your rivals RNG and Immunity complain that the road is wearing them out. What progress have you made, how have you improved your game and how different does competition feel in Europe??

Answer: Exhausted is putting it mildly. Our two New Zealand players put in 50 hours on the road while the rest of us enjoyed their well-deserved 30s.

The training went well, we managed to achieve some improvement compared to the last home game. We noticed a flaw in our defense, but we immediately took on it, worked on it properly and have only been going upward since then.

As for European CS, it’s a bit of a shock to us. As for the mechanics of the game, here we are almost on par with the top players, but in every other aspect of the game we still have a lot to learn. You could say that we immediately jumped into the deep end and now we will either swim or sink – in any case, we had to rethink a lot both about the team and about our individual game.

Question: Immediately after qualifying you signed a contract with Legacy; Did they give you a European bootcamp or would you have done it anyway?? What has changed for you since joining a large esports organization??

Answer: To be honest, we couldn’t be here without Legacy’s support. Overall it’s great to be part of the organization, they took a huge amount of the pressure off of us – we didn’t have to worry about accommodation, transportation, etc. Now we can focus on pure CS and spend the bootcamp time on improving our game, not organizing our lives.

Question: Last week you took part in an online competition (qualifying for the Red Dot Invitational), but lost to E-Frag.net and the lesser known Dead Pixels, which prevented you from leaving the group. How do you see this game – as a crushing blow or as a slight push that will help you play more carefully in the upcoming LAN finals?

Answer: More like a slap from an ex-lover than a right hook from an angry kangaroo. To be honest, we had just received new computers and warmed up for only two hours before these group games, so we can say that we played with almost no preparation.

On the other hand we lost. No excuses. Both teams showed us what a long way we need to go in order to confidently perform on the European stage. Since then we have had the opportunity to practice against Dead Pixels, as well as against other top teams, and have learned a lot from them. I hope we can demonstrate this during the event.

Question: You open DreamHack with a match against Virtus.pro, followed by TSM and Liquid, all of these teams are in good shape or have a lot of experience, which greatly lowers the public’s expectations for your team. How do you assess your chances in the first match and in the tournament as a whole??

Answer: For us this is the first serious test on the international stage and we are looking forward to these matches. We believe that playing with Virtus.pro will go through with one goal, although perhaps we can do something against them. We know we’ll be playing against a team with an outstanding scorer. It’s hard to say anything with certainty about TSM, but maybe we can show something decent playing against Liquid.

Question: Who would you say is the favorite for this event?? And who else do you expect to see in the finale??

Answer: I, like most viewers, expect to see EnVyUs and fnatic in the finals. However, it would be great if Luminosity made it to the finals. We have a lot of respect for their style of play.

Question: For the first time, two New Zealanders will be performing at an international CS event, should we expect crazy Haka style gameplay from them or will they not stand out so much from the national background??

Answer: I wouldn’t compare them to Haka. I think Raz and Ofnu are just less crazy than their local counterparts. Raz, however, sometimes gets weird, so you can sometimes expect him to make, let’s say, some weird moves.

Question: And finally, what does the future hold for Legacy?? You leave home immediately after DH? Do you have any plans for December?? And what dreams do you hope to realize in the future??

Answer: We leave almost immediately after DHW. When we get home, we will continue to play CounterPit league to get another international invite. So you might see us perform against Croatia early next year (*fingers crossed*). We plan to continue to grow as a team and as a brand and continue to play at the highest level of CS.

We caught up with Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo ahead of the FACEIT League Stage 3 Finals to discuss Luminosity’s recent roster changes.

The Brazilian team was in the news after parting ways with Lucas "steel" Lopez and Ricardo "boltz" Prass following a series of mixed results and replacing them with Games Academy duo Lincoln "fnx" Lau and Tazio "TACO" Filho.

Two new players will debut at the finals of FACEIT League Stage 3, which has now become part of the winter DreamHack. The updated roster will compete in the group stage with the Swedish team fnatic, the game will start at 21:00 (November 26).

Here’s what Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo told us about the latest roster changes, his expectations for the team, and his feelings after facing Team Liquid at the RGN Pro Series Championship:

Question: Where did the idea of ​​changing the line-up come from?? Have you worked on this decision before or was it a result of recent events??

Answer: Fer, cold and I thought we hadn’t gotten anywhere in the last four or five tournaments. We couldn’t take the next step towards success and kept trying different strategies to achieve better results, but it didn’t work. We are unhappy with our recent results and we want to become the best team on the planet.

Question: They say that you did not want to change the line-up and that Luminosity had to put pressure on you to make these changes happen. This is true?

Answer: Luminosity never offered us to change the composition. Of course, any organization wants good results, and professional teams live on this, but the owner rarely gets involved in such delicate matters as changing the roster, and the players decide such issues on their own.

Question: Steel’s resignation wasn’t exactly a surprise, but the same cannot be said about boltz’s departure. Your decision was influenced by its poor performance on IEM?

Answer: There are several factors within the team that have more to do with technical details than the number of kills or bad/good performance of the team. We didn’t discuss most of them publicly, there were only internal agreements about the key points that we need to try to improve, and most importantly, all our players knew about it. We would never remove a player because of one event. If we practiced this, I would have to be fired after the match with Na’Vi in Cluj-Napoca.

Question: What do you think about TACO?

Answer: A very hard-working Games Academy player who really stood out in all the important matches this season. We hope he doesn’t stop there and since he still has a lot to improve, this is best done by playing against stronger teams and more experienced players. It feels like right now he is one of our best.

Question: fnx is a very temperamental player and, in your own words, he is difficult to motivate. What made you take him in again??

Answer: fnx is probably one of the most powerful Brazilian counter-strike talents, and equally a player who has missed out on most of his opportunities. Indeed, the last time we played together, he didn’t care too much about the team and didn’t work for the idea. I think he learned his lesson – after what happened. When we went to play in the US, he stayed in Brazil and had to slowly regain his place in the competitive scene. After he was accepted into GA, he gave his all to ensure that his team achieved some results during the season. He has the right attitude to once again become the fnx we once knew and who will help us reach the championship.

Question: Since we raised this issue, is it true that your team is having difficulty playing in the BO3 format against strong teams?? Why does this happen? Do you think this might be a purely psychological problem??

Answer: This is such a strange disease that gets worse with each new lesion. Honestly, at first it was just hard because of our low level when meeting with teams like Na’Vi and fnatic in BO3 matches. I don’t think we lost the first BO3 just because there was more than one map. I think we just weren’t ready.

But recently we suffered defeats in the BO3 format, for which I cannot find an explanation. We lost to the Titans after beating them in the same BO3 at the same tournament, we lost two maps to Renegades when we were on the rise. Some results are not clear to us. Playing against Na’Vi, in both BO3 matches, we lost every map due to one or two rounds. It’s sad, but due to several accidents, we were unable to properly complete many very important matches. Hopefully with a new lineup and as time goes on we can put all this behind us and just win.

Question: When you moved to the USA, you won several tournaments and proved yourself to be one of the strongest teams in the region. Now you are just top 4. What has changed?

Answer: At first the American teams didn’t take our style of play seriously, and this not only gave us an advantage, but over time it also allowed them to improve their gameplay. I must say that the level of North American teams has risen greatly since our move. They play better and compete more. However, I think we are performing well. Took second place in the ESL ESEA Pro League and first in the qualifiers on FACEIT. I’m looking forward to the new season, because we have set ourselves the goal of winning every tournament.

Question: What will happen to the GA team now??

Answer: Games Academy will continue to play, the three remaining are already looking for new players and a new coach. The team will play CEVO Professional next season, which is literally one step away from the ESL ESEA Pro League. The guys have a bright future and I will help them in any way I can so that these players can get the recognition and opportunities they deserve doing the job they chose for themselves.

Question: Are you sad that the GA team is now weakened or are you happy because the Golden Chance project is quite successful and is already bearing fruit?

Answer: The fact that GA is a little weaker now is a direct consequence of Luminosity having the opportunity to become the strongest team in Brazil. This is not the first time this has happened, and will happen with every change in our scene. I prefer to look on the bright side of everything.

Without the Golden Chance, these players would not even be able to think about moving to the next level. Today, both those who play in our team and the rest are ready to take part in the best leagues on the planet. When we started this project, we didn’t even think about this possibility. The old Luminosity team could have achieved the same results without any changes. I’m sure GA will be very successful if the players stick together.

Question: What are your team’s plans for FACEIT Finals??

Answer: To be honest, we didn’t practice at all. We thought long and hard about the roster changes and we all agreed that we would use these tournaments to get fnx and TACO acclimated to our level of play in preparation for the international event. We are using this first tournament for us to gain more experience, because we have nothing to lose. On the contrary, I think we have the same chances that the old lineup would have had, and maybe even more. After the event we will stay in Sweden for another week to practice before the ESL ESEA Pro League finals. That’s where the real challenge will be, and what we want most is to end the year on a high note.

Question: Returning to your argument with Liquid. Have you made peace or is there still some bitterness left??

Answer: We are professionals and understand that players think and act differently in certain situations. Those who know our team also know how much we value sportsmanship and fair play between all teams. No hard feelings, we just have a better understanding of Liquid’s priorities now.

Question: Who was really at fault?? Hiko or RGN?

Answer: The clumsy photographer who turned off the power on fer’s computer during the 4×4 clutch. There are no rules that require you to play smoothly when something like this happens, because it happens very rarely (and suddenly). As soon as we realized what the problem was, we immediately stopped playing and tried to find the best solution.

The organizers looked at this incident as an equipment failure, which I personally did not agree with, and the Liquid players simply wanted to win at any cost. To each his own, but I personally prefer to maintain my sporting honor since I started playing seriously.