While DreamHack may have their Dream Expo exhibits on the showfloor and free play areas and the huge LAN party in the back for all the Bring Your Own Computer visitors and even an Indie Game Zone to show off all the independent game developer talent in Quebec, it is best known for its esports tournaments.
Before we get into the results of a few of the tournaments, it is a good time to talk about the change in venue. This year’s change in venue to the Olympic Stadium has definitely expanded DreamHack and given it the space that it deserves as well as increasing the amount of tournaments. With the history of the Olympic Stadium (its had its past issues), it is hard to not be slightly skeptical of this venue however, there is no doubt that it is perfect for DreamHack, especially because it gives a division between those wanting to focus on watching some professional esport tournaments and those going for everything else on the show floor. Those going to see the games sit in the rafters area which has their own entrance and at least two other spots to access from the expo floor. The rafters have different divisions with various screens spread well apart to accommodate the various tournaments, while at the same time, making it not limit the amount of people who want to comfortably enjoy whichever tournament they want to see.
Going back to the focal point of the entire event, as I mentioned before, DreamHack Montreal offered a lot of tournaments this year. While we won’t be covering all the results, here were the tournaments that happened over this three day event.
- DreamHack Canada Amateur Championship 2018
- StarCraft II World Championship Series
- DreamHack Open: Counter Strike Global Offensive
- Rainbow Six
- DreamHack Grand Prix (Hearthstone)
- Street Fighter V – Premier Event
- Brawlhalla
- Shadowverse
- Super Smash Bros
- DreamHack Fighting Game Championship
- Various BYOC tournaments (including Rocket League, Fortnite, etc.)
StarCraft II World Championship Series
As with past years, the crowd magnet always goes to the dynamic audience watching StarCraft II World Championship Series. The tournament attracts the biggest crowd and arguably, this audience benefits the most from the venue change. It is hard to imagine that StarCraft II was released 8 years ago in 2010 and still draws in such immense interest. What do we know? We aren’t that knowledgeable about this game to begin with. However, this championship is a big deal for its players as the tournament champion not only gets a decent monetary prize but also is guaranteed a slot at the WCS Global Finals. The WCS winner this year is Joona “Serral” Sotala, a Zerg player from Finland currently playing for ENCE Esports.
DreamHack Open Montreal
Day 3 was the semi-finals and grand finals for DreamHack Open Series which is the tournament for Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). The semi-finals kicked off in the morning with two teams from Poland facing off against each other: AGO ESports and Kinguin. After a fairly quick and one-sided matches, Kinguin moved on as the first finalist. Although AGO did at one point seem like they were getting back their momentum and winning a few rounds, they did eventually lose out to one key member of Kinguin stepping up his game and rebuilding the confidence in his team to work better together and pull back ahead. The next semi-finals match-up was Swedish team ENCE versus British team Imperial which each won a match before heading into a third match to break the tie. While Imperial seemed like they had the upper hand, ENCE made a comeback and ended up being the team to advance to the Grand Finals.
After a few years of watching DreamHack and CS:GO, its hard to not enjoy some of the intense rounds that happen and the first match was incredibly close as the scores bounced relatively close to each other with only one match ahead at half time and actually going the full 30 rounds. However, while it seemed that most people ENCE would win it, Kinguin was the one who ended up winning the Grand Finals in two matches.
DreamHack HCT Grand Prix Montreal
After a very delayed Day 2 and the Top 16s having a change of schedule of not being streamed, the final day of Hearthstone tournament, DreamHack HCT Grand Prix was a long day that started with the Top 8 with four rounds with players Fenomeno, Impact, Gallon and JustSaiYan making it to the Top 4. The final 2 that made it to the Finals were Fenomeno and JustSaiYan. After a riveting five rounds with Fenomeno taking the lead winning 2 matches in a row, JustSaiYan makes a huge comeback and wins three matches. This secures JustSaiYan as the winner of the DreamHack HCT Grand Prix.
Brawlhalla, Shadowverse & Rainbow Six
While there is only so much we can catch, the tournaments this year added in some newer games like Brawlhalla and Shadowverse. Brawlhalla is a free to play fighting game developed by Blue Mammoth Games and currently playable on PC and Playstation 4 however will also be heading to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in November 2018. The winner of this event is Boomie. On the other hand, Shadowverse is a free to play digital collectible card video game developer and published by Cygames. It is playable on mobile on both Apple devices and Android and also downloadable on Steam as well. In the Shadowverse World Circuit, the winner will secure a spot in the Contender’s Cup and the title goes to Crumsion.
Rainbow Six tournament had a total of sixteen teams battling it out for the winning title. This Ubisoft title has been around for a few years and has definitely gain its following for sure especially with constant new things added to it. The champion of this year’s tournament went to Cloud9 who has secured themselves a spot in Six Invitational 2019.
With that, it wraps up our coverage of DreamHack Montreal 2018! It is the third year for this event and definitely shows that the decisions to change the venue has made this event even more structured and fun to be a part of. Do you watch or participate in esports? What game(s) interest you? Share it in the comments below.