Four teams remain in contention for the DreamHack Masters Closed Qualifier
With the madness of the European qualifiers fresh in everyone's mind, the North American iteration of the DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 open qualifiers was comparatively upset-free. Sure, a number of ESEA Premier teams fell to lower tier competition, but the four remaining teams still in contention were all seeded fifth or higher at the start of the event.
RBG forfeited their first match against CIStack, with Jadan "HexT" Postma citing a desire to get more practice time in as the reasoning behind that decision. To quickly recap the upsets, Third Impact were decisively beaten in their second round match with CarbonX, 16-8 on Vertigo. The only other ESEA Premier team to lose to non-Premier opposition was ImPerium, who dropped Mirage 16-11 against CohesioN.
That's not to say that there weren't some scares along the way, though. Oceanus needed double overtime to get past Ryze's money crew, while High Coast needed all thirty rounds to get past Cyberstorm. Recon 5 escaped with an overtime win over Levitate, but were immediately defeated by paiN in their subsequent match.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in yesterday's qualifier was that Brian "BrianCS" Oliver finally got his HLTV page thanks to a one-round appearance with Triumph against CarbonX. Triumph defeated CETE E CADEIRA, Parabellum, Counter Nature, and CarbonX en route to their matchup with Danny "cxzi" Strzelcyzk and Rebirth. The latter defeated Kripto, East Coast, Pryde, and Secret Club to make their way to the best-of-three series.
On the other side of the bracket paiN defeated De_eznuts, Aqualix, Tidal, and Recon 5 to punch their ticket to today's showdown with High Coast. High Coast, featuring Ian "motm" Hardy in place of Jonathan "djay" Dallal, bested IMPETU, Conquest, Cyberstorm, and Oceanus to advance to face the Brazilians today. The latter matchup finished after quadruple overtime with David "J0LZ" Jolin's 51 frags not being enough to carry Oceanus over the finish line.
Today's best-of-three matchups will be:
 Triumph |
vs. | Rebirth |
| High Coast |
vs. |  paiN |
Today's winners will join the invited teams, Extra Salt and Bad News Bears, in the Closed Qualifier for the main event.
