DreamHack Masters Malmö closed qualifiers set to start

The brackets for the Europe and North America DreamHack Masters Malmö closed qualifiers have been determined, with matches set to begin in short order.

The eight-team closed qualifiers will utilize a double-elimination best-of-three bracket, with only a single side from each region earning a spot at DreamHack Masters Malmö.

Unicorns of Love, Spirit, FATE, and GamerLegion were the four teams that topped the Europe open qualifier, earning themselves spots in the closed stage of the tournament.The teams have a rough road ahead of them as two of the invited sides have recently returned from strong showings at the StarLadder Major, with MOUZ and CR4ZY entering as the top two seeds.

mousesports will look to earn a spot in Malmö

The remaining invited teams are no pushover either, with Tricked and a new-look Heroic that features the addition of Johannes "⁠b0RUP⁠" Borup and the return of Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer rounding out the team list.

The first-round matchups in the Europe closed qualifier are:

MOUZ vs. FATE
Tricked vs. GamerLegion
Heroic vs. Spirit
CR4ZY vs. Unicorns of Love

As the two invited teams, eUnited and Envy enter the North America closed qualifier as the top seeds. The latter team will debut with Ryan "⁠ryann⁠" Welsh, a player who was reportedly in talks to join the team on a permanent basis last week.

The other two invited sides, Complexity and Renegades, dropped out of the running at the start of the day, leading to the North America open qualifier playing out with a slight tweak — six teams would advance from the open qualifier to the closed stage instead of four, with the losers of the quarter-final matchups battling in a lower bracket for the two extra slots.

Sharks edged past TeamOne to advance to the closed stage

The tweaked format saw the majority of favoured sides able to advance, including Swole Patrol, ATK, and Sharks, who recently completed their move to NA after adding Ignacio "⁠meyern⁠" Meyer and Luca "⁠Luken⁠" Nadotti.

Luminosity were not so lucky as their new addition, Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros, had a rough welcome to North America, scoring his lowest rating to date following a loss to Stay Frosty in the round of 16.

The opening matchups for North America are:

eUnited vs. Monstars
Sharks vs. ATK
Swole Patrol vs. Stay Frosty
Envy vs. Divine

Troubles for the North America qualifier didn't end there however, as tweets from Stay Frosty's Michael "⁠agM⁠" Abood and Party Astronauts' Brenden "⁠stellar⁠" McGrath indicate that their teams, alongside Monstars, may be unable to play.