GGPR and Oceanus claim final spots in DreamHack Open March 2021 Closed Qualifier
The second open qualifier for DreamHack Open March 2021 has concluded, seeing GGPR and Oceanus join the list of teams set to compete in the Closed Qualifier this weekend.
Unlike the first qualifier, the second qualifier was far more straightforward in the first two rounds, with the favorites winning the majority of their matches and all Premier teams making it to the third round without much trouble.
In the third round, the only notable upset of the qualifier took place as ImPerium was taken down 19-16 by Advanced squad X13 on Vertigo. Outside of that, it was smooth sailing for the other two Premier squads, with GGPR taking down SMALL 16-5 and Oceanus besting Russian Street Party 16-9. It is worth noting that GGPR used Michael "Uber" Stapells as a stand-in for Jake "eXotic" Vaupell for this qualifier, with the former Complexity and Rogue player playing his first matches since 2018. Meanwhile, Oceanus played out the qualifier with Sean "Inseaniac" Morrison and Michael "miLLe" St-Pierre in place of Ezekiel "KmZ" Hughes and Wayne "castro" Einarsson.
Moving into round four, GGPR overcame Able 16-10 on Dust2 while Talen "Talen" M.'s HeadShotKings beat Unjustified 16-10 on Train to set up a confrontation with GGPR. On the other side of the bracket X13 pulled out a narrow 16-13 victory against Big Chillin on Train and Oceanus claimed a 16-10 win over Synergy on Overpass.
The series between GGPR and HeadShotKings started out in HeadShotKings favor as the Advanced side crushed GGPR 16-3 on Overpass. Moving onto Dust2, GGPR evened the series up by winning their map pick 16-10. After this, GGPR got their chance at revenge as they demolished HeadShotKings 16-2 on Inferno to win the series and claim a Closed Qualifier spot.
Oceanus' series against X13 was far more easygoing for the French Canadian side as they decisively won their opponent's map pick, Train, 16-4. Continuing onto Nuke, X13 put up a slightly better showing, forcing the map into double digits before Oceanus won the map 16-11 to take the last qualifier spot.
As such, the Closed Qualifier now consists of:
Extra Salt | Mythic |
Secret Club | Third Impact |
Recon 5 | RBG |
GGPR | Oceanus |
The Closed Qualifier is set to start on February 25th and will see two teams advance to DreamHack Open March.