DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016DH Masters Malmö playoff preview
With quarter-finals set to be played out tomorrow we have prepared a playoffs preview for DreamHack Masters Malmö which goes over the match-ups, their history, best players so far at the event and some of the main storylines.
The last day of group stage was played out in a surprising manner to say the least. TYLOO kicked things off by defeating reigning major champions Luminosity in a narrow decider, followed up by GODSENT who advanced over CLG from group B.
The other two deciders saw Ninjas in Pyjamas deal a blow to Astralis, who haven't placed below the top eight in the history of the lineup, while Envy got their quarter-final spot after two maps versus Tempo Storm.
The bracket didn't quite turn out as expected
That made for quite an unexpected bracket which only features one team of the current top four of our world ranking, Natus Vincere.
Read our preview below to find out what the match-ups will bring tomorrow in terms of their previous head-to-heads, who the best players of the event are thus far and more:
| Natus Vincere | TYLOO | |||
 Denis "seized" Kostin |
1.36 |  YuanZhang "Attacker" Sheng |
1.03 | |
| Egor "flamie" Vasilyev |
1.10 | HaoWen "somebody" Xu |
0.96 | |
 Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko |
0.95 | vs. | YuLun "Summer" Cai |
0.95 |
| Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev |
0.82 | Hui "DD" Wu |
0.92 | |
 Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács |
N/A | Ke "captainMo" Liu |
0.81 | |
| Sergey "starix" Ischuk |
1.24 |
* Ratings are from DH Masters Malmö
Not only are Natus Vincere the only ones from the top four to make it out of the group stage, they did it without GuardiaN, who had to skip groups due to his injury. Coach starix proved to be a great replacement, as he was the team's second best-rated player despite nearly zero team practice and only three days of individual preparation.
GuardiaN will step back in for playoffs, but it's very likely he hasn't played any Counter-Strike since MLG Columbus, which ended nearly two weeks ago. His doctors have cleared him to play, however, so he'll probably turn up in better shape than at the major, where he even had to multiply his sensitivity in the grand final due to the injury.
So far seized has had an amazing tournament - he carried the team to playoffs with an other-worldly performance in the overtime versus CLG (37-19, 1.61 rating on Dust2). He has dealt over 100 damage in 54% of all rounds his team played (the most at the event), and what makes it even more impressive is that 32% of his deaths were traded for a kill within five seconds (fourth highest).
The worrying sign for Na`Vi could be Edward who was expected to carry over his Columbus form (his best in CS:GO) to Sweden, but he has been a bit underwhelming at Malmö, only posting a 0.82 rating over two maps against inferior competition.
Questions about GuardiaN's shape will be answered in the next two days
The big surprise of the tournament have without a doubt been TYLOO. Their international debut has already surpassed all expectations, as they defeated Liquid in overtime and Luminosity in a nail-biting series.
18-year-old Summer hasn't been the team's best player, despite him putting in insane numbers among Asian competition. While he had his moments, Attacker was consistently doing damage - not just figuratively, as on average he has dealt 114 damage in rounds TYLOO won.
In spite of captainMo having one of the worst ratings at the event, he still found a way to contribute with the most clutches out of all players at the tournament (5).
When it comes to the match-up itself, there is naturally no history between the two. In terms of maps it's obvious the series won't see Cache in play, as it's Na`Vi's instant ban, and the same goes for Train, a map the Chinese don't play. Overpass should be the go-to map for GuardiaN and company, while Inferno would make the most sense for TYLOO as one of their two best maps.
In the interview we have conducted with QiFang "Karsa" Su he admitted the slow play from Luminosity benefited his team, and Natus Vincere are the closest to that playstyle. You can definitely expect TYLOO to come in prepared, as the coach seemingly kept up his night-time VOD analyzing schedule.
* Ratings are from DH Masters Malmö
The form of both of these teams was in question going into the event, as Envy finished in last place at their last three events, while Dignitas bowed out of the Columbus offline qualifier and Copenhagen Games, at both of which they were considered favourites.
The Frenchmen finally broke the streak in Malmö, but it wasn't without its issues, as they lost to Tempo Storm in the initial round narrowly and played a very back-and-forth Cache with a Robert "RobbaN" Dahlström-less FaZe. Defeating Tempo Storm must have helped their confidence going forward, but it was no thanks to DEVIL. The new addition wasn't able to pass a 0.8 rating on any of the four maps Envy played at this event.
What has always been the case and holds true again in Malmö, however, is the apEX effect. Whenever the entry-fragger goes off the team wins, and he did - he is Envy' best-rated player by far and he was instrumental on all three maps the Frenchmen won. Apart from that, the team seems to use his aggression well, as he is rated third best in bait assists (0.16 per round).
dignitas have looked amazing so far
Dignitas, on the other hand, have looked stellar overall. They gained some much-needed confidence by defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas 16-2 on Overpass and followed it up with a comfortable win over Astralis. Admittedly, their domestic rivals chose to leave Cache in the mix, their worst map apart from Cobblestone which they never play.
k0nfig is currently sitting at 1.57 rating (highest at the event) after destroying Ninjas in Pyjamas (24-13, 2.11 rating) and playing very well against Astralis (22-19, 1.19 rating). While it's usually Kjaerbye joining k0nfig at the top of the scoreboard and now it was TENZKI and RUBINO, the whole team played great in groups. Especially their difference in opening kills and opening deaths goes to show just how much - 29:14.
These lineups (barring DEVIL) have only met twice on LAN in 2016, both times at Game Show GEC Finals. In groups, Dignitas only dropped 14 rounds over two maps, but when they met in the grand final the result was much different, as Envy powered to a convincing 3-0 win.
Two maps we definitely won't see are Overpass (Envy' ban) and Dust2 (Dignitas' ban) and I would assume Cobblestone will come out as the Danes' pick, while the Frenchmen will take Train. Overall, the teams have a very similar map pool, which should make for a great series.
| MOUZ | GODSENT | |||
 Nikola "NiKo" Kovač |
1.28 |  Simon "twist" Eliasson |
1.42 | |
 Johannes "nex" Maget |
1.22 | Andreas "znajder" Lindberg |
1.15 | |
| Denis "denis" Howell |
1.06 | vs. | Mathias "pauf" Köhler |
1.01 |
 Chris "chrisJ" de Jong |
1.01 | Markus "pronax" Wallsten |
0.99 | |
| Timo "Spiidi" Richter |
0.95 | Jonas "Lekr0" Olofsson |
0.91 |
* Ratings are from DH Masters Malmö
Another huge surprise of the tournament was the advancement of GODSENT, who are still a very new unproven team apart from Pantamera Challenge. They are starting to prove themselves here at DreamHack Masters Malmö by making the quarter-finals over experienced teams like G2 and CLG.
The main star of the team in Malmö was without a doubt twist, a player who has always had the talent but was never a part of a truly dangerous team. His 1.42 rating at the tournament is beastly considering GODSENT had to go through the elimination game and the decider.
He and znajder lifted most of the weight in their games, especially versus CLG, where twist passed 30 kills twice, once in overtime and once in a 24-round match (31-11, 2.05 rating on Cache). He also had a solid performance in the other two games, against Natus Vincere and G2.
Will NiKo have a reason to smile tomorrow?
On the other side, NiKo was once again in the spotlight for MOUZ, who advanced over tough competition in Liquid and Luminosity. The Bosnian seemingly never has bad games, even when he's leading the team, admittedly with the help of Niclas "enkay J" Krumhorn.
He also holds the highest damage dealt per round (101) and he was able to do that while being involved in 44% of his team's opening duels, which is also the most out of anyone at the event.
This time he was joined at the top by nex, whose issues with playing on stage are no secret. Nothing points to him overcoming his nerves this time, but at least he could have some confidence coming from his group stage performance.
The mostly-German side is the obvious favourite here, but looking at how GODSENT played in the groups it wouldn't surprise me to see a close series, depending on whether nex plays as well as he did in groups.
* Ratings are from DH Masters Malmö
All the surprises at the tournament made it nearly impossible for the bracket to turn out evenly, and Ninjas in Pyjamas and Virtus.pro were the ones to get the short straw.
Virtus.pro had a comfortable going through the group stage, as they were drawn to FaZe who just changed a player and RobbaN wasn't present, and this time didn't fall to Tempo Storm like at Katowice.
It's great to see Snax back in form as the second best-rated player of the event that also holds the second highest ADR (99.4). byali helped Virtus.pro advance from first place a great deal as well - something we haven't seen for quite some time from the youngest player of the team.
For the Swedes it is the star combo of f0rest and GeT_RiGhT on top rating-wise, closely followed by friberg, who seems to be playing slightly better under Björn "THREAT" Pers's leadership, as the depth in strategy takes pressure off his shoulders. Ninjas in Pyjamas already passed their first big test, defeating one of the top four teams on a best-of-three even after starting the event off with a 2-16 blowout against Dignitas.
Snax back in form is a good sign for Virtus.pro
These two teams haven't played each other on LAN for more than seven months - the last time they did was at ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational, which was only a group stage match, and their last series was played at the second major of 2015, ESL One Cologne. Those results mean nothing going into the quarter-final tomorrow, considering it's been this long and with a completely different Ninjas in Pyjamas.
There is a bit of an added value to the match-up however, as apparently the duos of NEO-TaZ and f0rest-GeT_RiGhT are currently even at 21-21 in maps against each other, all time.
Both teams should be on a very similar level on most maps. Both don't like to play Dust2, but VP should be the ones to take it out, which means Ninjas in Pyjamas has a chance to pick Cache. Overall the map pools of both teams are fairly similar, both like Cache, Mirage, Train and Cobblestone and both will likely want to stay away from Inferno.
Overall this quarter-final and Dignitas-Envy have great potential to be close games filled with good CS, so make sure to tune in tomorrow.
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