DreamHack Valencia will take place from the 12th to 14th of July in Valencia, Spain, with a similar schedule and organisation as the DreamHack Austin event last June. An initial “bring your own computer” (BYOC) event on the Thursday will add four teams to the already invited list of 12 teams for a group stage on the Friday and playoffs on the Saturday. The main difference, however, is with a qualification spot to the 3rd ever R6 Major in Paris on the line the tournament’s stakes will be even higher and so the competition even more intense.
Who's Competing?
The 12 teams invited to DreamHack Valencia
The invited 12 teams have been split up into four groups with four teams left to be decided through the BYOC qualification system with the groups as followed:
Group A
PENTA Sports: Pengu, jOONAS, Goga, Fabian, Kantoraketti and Shas[O]Udas (their coach)
Team Vitality: ZephiR, BiBoo, RaFaLe, Spark, BriD and BiOs (their coach)
EnD Gaming: Alation, Peak, Torok, Hunter, Fratelli and Boroz (their coach)
PENTA Sports are the clear favourites in this group as, with 3 Seasonal and 1 Major victories, they are the most successful team in Siege history. Despite this, however, PENTA has shown a small level of weakness in Pro League following two very close games against the less successful teams of Orgless and Mock-it Esports in recent weeks which, along with their loss to Liquid at the Season 7 Grand Final, shows the world that they can be beaten.
Team Vitality are also a team who have been recently struggling; their “measure twice, cut once” strategy has been hurt by the recent Echo buff and the introduction of Maestro leading to a defeats to Mock-it Esports in the Coupe de France finals and Edenity in the Paris Major Qualifiers meaning they have yet to earn a spot at the Paris Major. They will therefore have a huge level of support from the French community to get the Major spot which could aid them to a successful DreamHack campaign.
Finally EnD Gaming come in as an invited Challenger League team to complete Group A. EnD finished Season 7 of Challenger League in 3rd place and most recently were crowned Champions of Italy after winning the IEC Finals in Milan for the second time running. They’ll be hoping to show that they’re competitive with the bigger teams in the lead up to Challenger League Season 8.
Group B
Mock-it Esports: Panix, Enemy, RevaN, Voy, Alive and Gimliiiii (their coach)
Ninjas in Pyjamas: Kamikaze, Psycho, pzd, julio, wag and Twister (their coach)
I don’t know: meepeY, Lacky, LeonGids, sTiZze, Elemzje and Helbee (their coach)
Mock-it Esports recently surprised everyone winning the Coupe de France 2018 by defeating the favourites of Team Vitality and Millenium. Outside of this tournament, however, Mock-it has struggled to impress currently ranking joint last in Europe during Season 8 of Pro League and also finishing joint last at DreamHack Austin last month. The team will be hoping to show that their CDF performance was no fluke and that they are a competitive team going into the Paris Major in August.
After teasing for 8 months, Ninjas in Pyjamas finally entered the R6 scene by acquiring the old Black Dragon’s roster last month and has seen mixed success since. The roster is struggling in Pro League as they’re currently placed in last position after 3 games and was knocked out of the OGA Pit tournament in straight games however saw success in the Paris Major qualifiers as they finished in second to guarantee a spot at the Major. These inconsistent results are strange to see from the most reliable roster in LATAM and so the team will be hoping to make their new organisation proud by showing up at the event.
To round the group off is i don’t know, a majority British team who has stormed straight from Challenger League to be currently drawing with PENTA at the top of the Pro League Season 8 table so far. The entirety of the team had previous Pro League experience including their new coach, Helbee, an ex-player for Eanix and the host of the SiegeGG “debrief” podcast. Having lost only two games in the last 19 weeks the team will be hoping to continue their impressive run at the event to hopefully draw potential organisations to the team.
Group C
Rogue: Ecl9pse, Slashug, Bryan, Easilyy, Geoometrics and Ranger (their coach)
Charity Nerds: AceeZ, ripz, PARAA, Hungry, KS and Lazzo (their coach)
ENCE eSports: Willkey, Bounssi, UUNO, Gomfi, blas and ProtaX (their coach)
Rogue were consistently seen as the number two team in North America behind Evil Geniuses but, after defeating EG to be seeded top in NA Season 7 and strong performances during both the season 7 LAN Finals and DreamHack Austin 2018, Rogue has shown their ability to compete with the very best and will be hoping to continue this onto Valencia this week. This will also be the first LAN event Geoo will be able to attend since joining Rogue in March making them one of the firm favourites to win the competition.
The second unrepresented team invited to Valencia will be the “Orgless” roster of Charity Nerds; so named due to a generous €1,000 donation by the Vice President of Charity Nerds, a charity which donates video games and consoles to hospitalized children. The roster has seen a series of impressive results over the last month having drawn against Millenium and had very close games against the top teams of PENTA Sports and i don’t know in Pro League. As well as this, just last Friday, the team managed an impressive 3-1 victory over i don’t know to guarantee themselves a place at the Six Major. The Orgless roster will now be hoping for another impressive showing at Valencia in the hopes of attracting an organisation to their team as they head to Paris next month.
Unlike Charity Nerds, ENCE eSports is a very well known name having attended every Pro League LAN for the first 2 years of Siege as well as winning Season 6 of Pro League. The team however has seen huge changes in the 6 months since the victory, with Kantoraketti and Sha77e leaving for PENTA with Sha77e then returning to ENCE with PENTA’s old coach, Blas, as a player. The new roster has already shown some promise in the OGA Pit tournament as they finished second in EU just behind PENTA Sports however this will be their first real test of what they can do in which they’ll be hoping to show that their time in the spotlight is not yet over.
Group D
Millenium: Joghurtzz, Renshiro, Liven, Hicks, risze and Crapelle (their coach)
Chaos: Secretly, REDGROOVE, sno0ken, Renuilz, Kripps and Syred (their coach)
Cloud9: Goddess, FoxA, Schlongii, Retro, LaXIng and Robn (their coach)
Millenium will be going into the tournament as one of the favourites to win it after they defeated both Rogue and Evil Geniuses to take the DreamHack Austin 2018 title just a few weeks ago. Since then, however, Millenium suffered a disappointing Coupe de France performance losing half of their matches before going out of the EU OGA Pit Cup after winning just two maps out of six; they’ll be hoping to show in Valencia that this was due to “strat saving” and that they do in fact remain one of the very top teams in Pro League
The Swedish team of Chaos meanwhile have had a much less successful past few months having finished joint 5th at DreamHack Austin and, despite a close matchup against idk and drawing to Team Vitality, are yet to get a win during Season 8 of Pro League. Despite this promise can be seen from their OGA Pit results in which they finished in 3rd place beating Orgless and ENCE along the way showing they can compete at the top level which they will need to show if they want to get out of the group stage in Valencia
Finally the last invited team will be Cloud9; one of only three non-European teams at the event. Cloud9, previously known as beastcoast, has a remarkable roster which includes two Year 1 World Champions (Laxing on Xbox and Retro on PC), Siege’s first female pro (Goddess) and an analyst for the last two Pro League LANs (FoxA); together this team in its short history has failed to live up to its hype having yet to win a game in Pro League despite drawing to the most successful American team, Evil Geniuses. C9 will see this as a huge opportunity for them to show that they are as big a deal as their organisation suggests with this being their last chance to qualify for the upcoming Paris Major.
When Are The Games?
The event’s stream schedule
Thursday will see the entirety of the offstream BYOC tournament take place with the first group stage matches of NiP vs idk starting at 4PM CEST and Chaos vs Cloud9 at 7PM. On Friday the rest of the Group Stage matches happen, most of which will be offstream before the playoffs start on Saturday; one quarter-Final, both semi finals and the final will all be streamed starting from 10PM onwards.
Where Can You Watch the Games?
All streamed games will take place on the usual Pro League Twitch accounts for English, French, German and Spanish viewers and will be hosted by Panky with the English cast by Demo, MiloshTheMedic and mzo.
The casting talent for the event