ASUS ROG DreamLeague Season 1 Preview
DreamHeack is around the corner and with that it’s time to take a look at the ASUS ROG DreamLeague Season 1 playoffs brackets. The playoffs will take place in two double elimination stages with the six top teams of the groupstages attending the event. We’ll discuss the teams in terms of their pairings for Day 1 to begin with, and then go on to the two top seeded teams who will entirely bypass the June 14th first playoff bracket.
| Placing | Base Prizemoney | Compendium | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st. | $ 40,000 | $ 31,883 (20%) | $ 71,883 |
| 2nd. | $ 25,000 | $ 15,942 (10%) | $ 40,942 |
| 3rd. | $ 15,000 | $ 15,942 (10%) | $ 30,942 |
| 4th. | $ 10,000 | $ 15,942 (10%) | $ 25,942 |
| 5th. | $ 6,500 | $ 15,942 (10%) | $ 22,442 |
| 6th. | $ 3,500 | $ 15,942 (10%) | $ 19,442 |
Additionally 5% of the compendium sales were distributed among the 7th-12th place teams, amounting to $7,971 per team.
Brother Against Brother - Evil Geniuses vs. Alliance
It’s hard not to consider Evil Geniuses the favourites going into this match-up after their performance towards the end of The Summit, especially when contrasting that with the disappointing run Alliance had at WPC ACE. Still, there are some factors that may disrupt the expected balance in this match-up.
Evil Geniuses had a rough time last in Europe, and their problems with jetlag were a big part of their crumbling during the playoff stages of StarLadder 9. This is even more so a concern as the team weren’t able to simply fly off to Europe from California. Mason ‘Mason’ Venne was delayed in San Francisco awaiting his passport and Artour ‘Arteezy’ Babaev has his finals to attend to. It’s not a huge concern, but exhaustion does strange things to you, and DreamHack is an exhausting event all in it’s own right.
For contrast, Alliance have had some time back home, settled in at their new bootcamp place, had time to dissect the failures of WPC ACE and in general will come with fresh ideas and fresh minds to the event. The big crux however is that this should have already been the case at WPC, so if the preparation failed for that event, it’s difficult to be overly confident about this event, but it might be a closer battle than some expect.
It’s also interesting to note that EG and Alliance are the two most prominent Western teams toying around with coaches at this time (Cloud9 has also had the aid of Aaron 'Clairvoyance' Kim as of late), with Clinton ‘Fear’ Loomis first outing seemingly having considerable positive effects for EG, as his unflappable nature and great experience should help to be a bedrock for the young team when things get stormy. Meanwhile Alliance have been exploring bringing their coach for WPC ACE, Malaysian pro player Chan ‘WinterR’ Litt-Binn, to their Swedish bootcamp until TI4. According to our information WinteR will also be with Alliance at DreamHack.
Overall, both teams are favoured to make it out of the first playoff round and likely even to challenge for the win of the event.
Uncertainty Abounds - Fnatic vs. mousesports
The first question on everyone's minds is without a doubt, will Adrian ‘Era’ Kryeziu be returning to the Fnatic fold for DreamHack? Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the case, as his personal medical issues continue to be a storm cloud above the heads of his team. It’s undeniable that he is a great asset to Fnatic when he plays, and that for all of Steve ‘Excalibur’ Ye’s strength as an individual player, it’s hard for a team like Fnatic to find that same comfort and flexibility with a new player.
Meanwhile Fnatic’s opponents are well rested as they’ve not been jetsetting about since grouping up for the International Qualifiers. mouz looked incredibly strong at one time, but in recent weeks problems have begun to appear. The team is dominant in the early game and have great individual play, but they often break down during the mid game, either playing aggressive with greedy items or just getting sloppy in how they take fights. This is a major concern for the squad and one that they have surely been working to remedy, but if they show up to a LAN without addressing these problems, they may be in for a bumpy ride.
Overall of the two mouz looks the more promising as Fnatic expended much of their surprise factor at The Summit, and will have a harder time throwing something new together in the short time they have between flying across the Atlantic. It should also be noted that from the very start Fnatic had a tougher time at The Summit against the Western teams of Na`Vi and EG, possibly indicative of the fact that their style of play is less likely to surprise teams that are familiar with the regular Fnatic picks.
If either of these two wishes to make it into the second stage of the playoffs they need to get a hold of their problems and fix them fast. For a dark horse pick in this competition, mouz might not be such a bad choice, as they have a relatively short way to go to return to top form. It’s just that that short way tends to be more systemic than most people realize, and harder to root out.
The CIS Hope - Team Empire
Team Empire was one of the most dominant teams in the West for much of this spring. They figured out the 6.80 patch early and got very good at executing a number of drafts, but they also became somewhat predictable over time, a fact that was brilliantly exploited by DK in the StarLadder 9 finals. Since then, it’s been an uneven path for Empire, who have had to come to terms with the need to expand their pool of strategies and heroes while seeing many of their favourite heroes of the past few months get nerfed out of competitive play.
If you feel like you haven’t seen as much of Empire as you used to recently, there’s some truth to that. DreamHack is the only pre-TI4 LAN that Empire qualified for, falling victims largely to slight downturn in their play and the abundant direct invites going to Na`Vi, a team which they should handily be able to beat at this time. So it is that they have been preparing for this event largely under the radar, with the only real showing being their best-of-five series against mouz for the BountyHunter Series #4, which they won 3-2.
It’s largely anyones guess where the team stands at this time, but what has not gone away is their strengths as players and as a team. Empire features some of the greatest prospects of the CIS scene and their performances over the past six months have been just the first showings of what could become a dynasty to surpass even Na`Vi, or at least to surpass them until Na`Vi recruits them. It’s not so much a question of can they find their form again, but rather will it be before or after DreamHack.
Groupstage Winners - Cloud 9
It’s not been Cloud 9’s year so far on LAN. They well apart against Alliance in the DreamHack Bucharest finals and then again showed some very concerning play at WPC ACE, ending at the bottom of the pile. So the question then becomes, are these results representative of what we can expect of the team?
Certainly C9’s performances in China during both their trips seemed to indicate that they have trouble performing in the country, and some of it likely comes down to issues with conforming to local culture, as especially the food has been a problem raised during their first stay in China for offlaner Pittner ‘bOne7’ Armand. Not surprisingly, bOne7 also showed the greatest issues with his play during WPC this time around, indicative that he was perhaps having trouble adjusting. If this was all that lay behind C9’s poor performance two weeks ago, then they should be able to turn things around for DreamHack. If the problems are more severe, it’s less likely that they’ll have had the time to figure things out in time.
In terms of jetlag at least C9 should have no problems however, as they arrived earlier this week for a Stockholm bootcamp prior to the event. They also have a slight edge due to being the de facto winners of the online groupstages, as they will get to face the second place team from the first playoff bracket, and will be able to prepare by watching the first day of games and picking up what kind of style their opponents will be playing.
Pictures courtesy of: DreamHack, ppd, KellyMilkies, Na`Vi's n0tail Meepo video, Capitalist, v1lat and Logitec.
