Triumph, Ze Pug Godz qualify for DreamHack Open Summer North America

Triumph and Ze Pug Godz topped the DreamHack Open Summer North America closed qualifier to become the first two teams to qualify for the main event.

The closed bracket saw three out of the four open qualifier teams emerge victorious in the first-round matches, with unranked side Kinship the only one of those that did not progress to the semi-finals as Triumph made short work of the inexperienced squad in two maps. Meanwhile, the two Brazilian teams, Yeah and TeamOne, recorded wins over Recon 5 and New England Whalers, respectively, to move on to the semis.

The most surprising result in the opening round featured a Chaos team with a returning Joshua "⁠steel⁠" Nissan, who had been absent from the North American squad’s previous tournament at cs_summit 6 due to his ban from Valve-sponsored events. Despite topping the scoreboard for his team, steel’s men fell to Ze Pug Godz in a 2-0 series with defeats on Mirage (16-5) and Dust2 (16-14).

ANDROID's Ze Pug Godz qualify for DH Open Summer

In the semi-finals, Triumph and Yeah unexpectedly traded each other’s map picks, with Alan "⁠Shakezullah⁠" Hardeman’s troops claiming a commanding 16-5 win on Dust2 to kick the matchup off. However, the Americans could not replicate their form on Overpass as a Arthur "⁠f4stzin⁠" Schmitt 30-bomb helped Yeah tie the series. The matchup headed to Mirage to determine a winner, where a highly-contested first half saw Triumph narrowly edge ahead at the midway point. At the side switch, Michael "⁠Grim⁠" Wince came alive to one-up f4stzin from the previous map and lead his team to victory with a 31-kill game.

Ze Pug Godz took the fight straight to TeamOne in their semi-final battle, with a fantastic Edgar "⁠MarKE⁠" Maldonado showing on the T side of Nuke spearheading his team to a successful 9-6 half. The Brazilians were unable to mount any comeback at the half switch as the North American side swiftly wrapped up the map 16-8. Overpass proved to be even more dominant as an unstoppable Austin "⁠Cooper⁠" Abadir took charge and stormed his team to victory with a 2.13-rated performance and send them to DreamHack Open Summer.

Triumph and Ze Pug Godz are the first confirmed sides at the eight-team main event, which is set to take place from August 8-16 and feature a $90,000 prize pool, with six invited teams to be revealed at a later date.

The DreamHack Open Summer 2020 North America closed qualifier standings look as follows:

1-2. Triumph - DH Open Summer 2020 North America
1-2. Ze Pug Godz - DH Open Summer 2020 North America
3-4. Yeah - $3,000
3-4. TeamOne - $3,000
5-8. Chaos - $1,000
5-8. New England Whalers - $1,000
5-8. Recon 5 - $1,000
5-8. Kinship - $1,000