DreamHack Open Sevilla 2019 will be the seventh DreamHack Open stop of 2019 and will serve as a replacement event for 2019 DreamHack Open Montreal, which was slated to take place in September but ended up cancelled due to schedule conflict with the StarLadder Berlin. The tournament will kick off on December 13, 2019 and conclude two days later.
DreamHack Open Sevilla Betting Tips
Just like any other DreamHack Open event, the Sevilla tournament will pin eight CS:GO team against each other who will compete for the largest slice of US$100,000 prize pool.
The tournament will feature two double-elimination GSL groups, with all the opening and winners' matches, played as best-of-one (Bo1) and all elimination and decider matches played as Bo3. Top two teams from each group will then advance into the playoffs, where all matches, including the grand finals, will be played as Bo3.
The list of participating teams and seeding looks as follows:
Group A: BIG, CR4ZY, Movistar Riders, North
Group B: Gambit Youngsters, GODSENT, Illuminar Gaming, Tricked Esports
Now let's look at the teams, betting odds and our predictions of which teams do we believe have the needed quality to reach for the stars.
We start off our preview with Movistar Riders ($28.50 at Skrilla) who are priced as heavy underdogs and to be completely honest, we trust the bookmakers with this one. The Spanish team has earned a spot in the Sevilla event via Iberian qualifier, which on its own is not a very tough qualifier tournament to win simply due to weak teams that participate in it. While a respected team in their own league, Movistar Riders are not up to par with the remaining lineup present at the DreamHack Open Sevilla, which is why we advise anyone to completely avoid placing a bet on them. They might produce an upset win in a Bo1 fixture, anything more is highly unlikely.
Gambit Youngsters ($12.50 at Skrilla) and Illuminar Gaming ($12.50 at Skrilla) are both priced as sixth favorites to win the Sevilla tournament, and much like as it was the case with Movistar, the odds here are spot on. While both teams received direct invites to the event, neither scream quality. To start off GambitY are an academy team of Gambit, which on its own, paints a clear picture of their quality. Illumiunar on the other side are more of a B-Tier team who will have a hard time stacking up with the rest of the lineup. While they are entering the tournament in a very solid form, which suggests they can impress and make it out of the group, we would not count on Illuminar to go the distance, largely because most of their wins came against weaker Polish teams, and even those wins were not as dominant as we would like to see.
Moving up, we have CR4ZY ($8.80 at Skrilla) who are one of the teams that could potentially impress and go the distance. The Serbian squad has finished third-fourth in both of the previous DreamHack events and even won the Rotterdam event, which is a solid record on the paper, yet their quality and overall form has dipped in recent months. The departure of Nemanja "nexa" Isaković and Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač has greatly harmed their quality and they are simply not the same team we were looking at three months ago. Since then their results have been all over the place, seeing them reach the finals is unlikely, considering they will need to defeat either Tricked or GODSENT in the semis if everything falls into place in group B. At provided odds, we don't believe there is any value in backing them to make it deep.
With GODSENT ($5.50 at Skrilla) things get a bit more interesting. The Swedish team reached a third-fourth place in DreamHack Open Winter after losing to Tricked (1-2) in the semis. That said, they did not go down without a fight and we believe GODSENT could have performed better in the said fixture. Looking at the lineup, GODSENT have a realistic chance to reach the finals. If there won't be any surprises, they would need to defeat either North or BIG to do so, and while defeating North will not be easy, seeing GODSENT defeat BIG is likely to happen. Finishing first in group B will be a pivotal factor for GODSENT in this prediction but at provided odds we will take our chances.
Tricked ($4.85 at Skrilla) finished DreamHack Open Winter in second place after suffering a painful 1-2 defeat against forZe in the grand finals. The Danish team have not played a single match since, meaning there is not a lot of data to judge them by. At DreamHack Winter, they bested forZe (16-10) and FURIA (16-14) in the group stage and CR4ZY in the semis (2-0) which are all solid results. The question, however, is whether they can improve upon their previous result and go the distance here. To be fair, it's hard to tell. In theory, they should have won the previous tournament, but they fell flat in the grand finals. They might make it to the top here, but we don't feel like they will be able to stack up to the top two favorites. We would not exclude a possibility they upset both North and BIG here, but for the sake of this prediction, we will skip placing a wager on Tricked.
BIG ($4.05 at Skrilla) are one of the two "big boys" of the tournament which we believe is a fair assessment. While BIG have not won a single tournament in a while, they have been playing much stronger teams compared to the lineup present at DreamHack Sevilla. They have already defeated both North (2-0) and Tricked (2-0) in ECS Season 8, which is a great sign for their chances to win here. That being said, they lost to North last month at ESL Pro League - Europe (1-2). The biggest issue we have with BIG is that they haven't played a single match since November 24, which leads us to believe they are out of rhythm. We could imagine seeing them in the finals, however, defeating North will be a tough task.
North ($3.85 at Skrilla) are the favorites to win this tournament and for all the right reasons. Bo1 fixtures in the opening group stage fixtures could see them slip, but considering their quality, North should make it to the playoffs. From there onwards, they should have smooth sailing as we don't see any team being able to stack up to them. While North failed to achieve any remarkable results recently, they have been playing much stronger teams. All in all, we believe North have the needed quality to go the distance at this tournament and at very generous odds, we will take our chances.
