Mousesports headline Group D at this year’s DreamHack Masters Stockholm as they look to continue their evolution with Snax in the line-up.
Mouz look to score
Mousesports are in a peculiar spot, being firmly a tier 1 team yet generally lacking the high upside many others around them in the rankings possess. While still chock full of talent with a decent array of star and role players, mouz struggle to find a way to push themselves over the top.
Snax does give mouz a certain level of unpredictability with his quirky and unique brand of Counter Strike that routinely catches their opponents off-guard. The question for mouz is whether or not either Snax or oskar can reach then sustain their peak form over a long period of time in order to compliment ropz and suNny.
Mouz do still have the advantage of being a team that is willing to play Nuke, with hopes they continued to develop their map pool during their time off due to the player break.
MIBR have momentum
MIBR are coming in hot off a first-place finish at the ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018. Not only did MIBR claim first, they also did so in dominant fashion; never dropping a single map as they steamrollered through the event.
Still a fairly new squad with the addition of tarik, MIBR also had a complete overhaul in terms of their coaching with the addition of popular analyst YNk as their new head coach. YNk brings a fresh voice to MIBR as they look to continue to shift the way they play after struggling throughout the earlier stages of this year.
It was always about when and not if this line-up would be able to turn things around given the sheer amount of skill packed into this team. Things are looking up for MIBR, but given the vastly different levels in overall skill at DreamHack compared to ZOTAC, this event will be a more accurate gauge of their abilities.
FalleN is the main player to watch as he looks to continue the form that earned him the MVP at ZOTAC.
Visa issue hits HellRaisers
HellRaisers have long been a dangerous team lurking in tier 2, primarily due to their 1-2 punch of woxic and ISSAA. Unfortunately, it has been recently made public that woxic will be unable to attend this event due to a visa issue, with HellRaisers announcing that The Imperial’s nukkye will be filling in. This massively warps the expectations of HellRaisers with one of their key starters missing and minimal time to work out synergies with nukkye. This could have some interesting implications for their opening best-of-one against MIBR, with HellRaisers possibly entering with a more loose and risky style without their best performer. Nukkye is actually a nice late pick-up for HellRaisers though, given he is also an AWPer and hopefully much of the tactics and prep can still be utilised.
Gambit need to find old form
Last, yet perhaps most important, Gambit Esports are a team to track as they recently brought in legendary in-game leader B1ad3 to be their coach. Gambit have struggled to find an in-game leader ever since they lost Zeus to Natus Vincere, with the role being juggled by essentially all team members as they searched for an answer. Now in comes B1ad3 with hopes of a renewed fire within Gambit centered around his guidance and a singular voice.
Gambit contain multiple players who have shown incredible peaks previously, with the likes of AdreN, Hobbit and mir all looking to find their old form. With a lot of time to prepare during the player break, Gambit have a chance of announcing themselves back amongst the top tier of CS, albeit with a difficult opening test against mousesports.
Conclusion
Group D contains four teams that could all cause trouble in the Group Stage with mousesports and MIBR looking to avoid the upset and move on to the Playoffs. It’s a great collection of teams at DreamHack Masters Stockholm and it will be really instructive to see which of them have used the recent break wisely.
