This weekend Austin, Texas will host the first of the four DreamHack events offering a $50k prize pool. All the information relating to timelines and tournament structure was announced today. Here’s a summary:
Groups
The 12 invited teams will meet the 4 winners of the Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) tournament at the main event and will be split into 4 groups of 4 with the following composition:
Group A: Evil Geniuses, MockIt Esports, Motiv8 Gaming, BYOC qualifier Group B: Vitality, Mousesports, Team SiNister, BYOC qualifier Group C: Millenium, Spacestation Gaming, Noble Esports, BYOC qualifier Group D: Rogue, Obey Alliance, Digital Chaos, BYOC qualifier
The GSL format, seen in previous seasons of Pro League, will see Seeds 1 and 4 and Seeds 2 and 3 from each group play each other followed by a winners and losers match for each group. Finally, the loser of the winner's bracket match will play the winner of the losers bracket match for the second qualification spot for each group.
Timings
The BYOC Open Tournament on Friday will determine the final 4 teams advancing to the group stage. These matches begin at 10:00 AM CT (Local Time), but teams will compete off-stream.
At 4:00 PM CT on Friday the first of the group stage games will begin with Mousesports vs Sinister followed by Obey Alliance vs Digital Chaos.
Saturday is devoted entirely to the Group stage. After the stream kicks off at 10:00 AM CT the remaining first round matches will be played at 10:15 AM, the winner's matches will start at 12:45 PM, and the loser’s matches at 3:15 PM before finally the decider matches start at 5.45 PM.
Finally, the knockout playoffs will start at 10:15 on the Sunday with the Quarter Finals with the Grand Final starting at approximately 5:45 depending on the length of preceding matches.
Streams
Due to the tight schedule not all of the group stage and none of the BYOC matches will be streamed; however, all of the knockout playoffs will be broadcasted.
You will be able to watch these matches on the regular Pro League twitch channels for English, French, German and Russian viewers. The regular ESL Pro League talent will cast and spectate the streamed matches.