DreamHack Open Austin 2017 – Gambit secure their 2nd Title!

Gambit secured their 2nd DreamHack title last week at DreamHack Open Austin 2017, following their previous victory at DreamHack Winter 2016. Ever since their win at qualifiers for the DreamHack Winter, the team seems to have grown in consistency. This is arguably down to Danylo ‘Zeus’ Teslenko being appointed as captain last October. Although ‘Zeus’ isn’t always the best performer in game, the team has definitely improved since he’s lead as team captain.

Groups

Early on in the group stages saw the likes of Luminosity Gaming struggle with a 2-0 loss to the Danish team Heroic. Added to that was a frustrating 16-8 loss on Overpass to HellRaiser who were also knocked out of Group A. Over in Group B, Cloud9 put up a hard fight against semi-finalists G2 and managed to beat finalists Immortals, 16-7 on Inferno. Team Liquid had an equally frustrating group stage which resulted in their departure from the tournament alongside Cloud9.

Semi Finals

Gambit faced G2 in the semi finals and won 2-1 after an extra-time loss on Nuke. G2 looked strong during map 3 and were extremely close to taking the series with a scoreboard of 9-14. Despite being 2 rounds away from reaching the finals, G2 couldn’t match Gambits performance as they clawed back 5 consecutive round wins to take the series. The individual team stats told an interesting tale as Gambits Zeus had the lowest K/D ratio of the entire Bo3 at 63/80. However, the skills of Mihail ‘Dosia’ Stolyarov really shone through as he claimed the top spot on the scoreboard overall with an impressive K/D of 83/66.

Final

After their bumpy 2-1 win over Heroic, Immortals were left to take on Gambit in the finals at the Austin Convention Center, Texas.

The map veto process left fans with a run of Train, Inferno and Cobblestone. Playing their 1st pick Train, was a big advantage for Gambit in terms of boosting their morale for the rest of the Bo3. Immortals were 1 round ahead at half-time with a score of 7-8. Gambit came through to start their 2nd half CT side off well with a defuse to win the pistol-round. From there it seemed like plain sailing for Gambit until Immortals equalised the score at 12-12. Immortals didn’t manage to hold their winning streak and gave the momentum over to Gambit to win the 1st map at 16-12.

Inferno seemed to be Immortals strongest chance of securing a map win. Gambit had other plans and secured the 1st half with 9 rounds over 6. Immortals picked up the 2nd half pistol-round but were surprised to find Gambit had forced up with a couple of UMP’s on Zeus and AdreN. Gambit seemed to have the tournament in the bag as they sat on a score of 14-9. Both ‘Lucas’ and ‘fnx’ picking up double kills in round 24 seemed to shake things up a bit and brought Gambit to a tactical pause.

A strong take on the A bombsite left ‘Lucas’ hesitant to rotate over from B, facing an almost impossible 1v3 clutch. ‘Mou’ took the closing headshot to take ‘Lucas’ down and secure the title of DreamHack ASTRO Open Austin winners, 2017.