CSGO: DreamHack Masters Moves Online
| Tags: CS2, Dreamhack
| Author David Hollingsworth
DreamHack will take the event online due to COVID-19.
As the world continues to struggle with the impact of COVID-19, DreamHack has made the decision to move the upcoming DreamHack Masters event to an online-only competition.
With the event now moving fully online, DreamHack has announced changes to the structure of the event and when it will be played out:
- May 19-30, with the group stage of the regional championships in Europe and North America running parallel, and the playoffs taking place between June 8-14.
- The other two regional championships, Asia and Oceania, will also run simultaneously June 2-7.
- The total prize pool of $300,000 will be split between the four regions as follows: $160,000 for Europe; $100,000 for North America; $20,000 for Asia; $20,000 for Oceania. Each region will run qualifiers between April 16-20.
Michael Van Driel, Chief Product Officer at DreamHack, had this to say about the news;
“We’re very excited to move to an online format for DreamHack Masters Spring. While not being able to compete on LAN is unfortunate, we’ve developed a structure to support teams, players and fans around the world. We look forward to a great competition, showing that the world of esports goes on as we're quick to adapt and find solutions for this new reality.”
So far, some teams have been confirmed from Europe, North America and Asia.
- Europe — Astralis, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Vitality, ENCE, BIG, North
- North America —Evil Geniuses, 100 Thieves, Furia, MIBR
- Asia — TyLoo, ViCi Gaming
The move will see the finals not take place at the Kinnarps Arena in Jönköping, which was due to take place during the yearly DreamHack Summer LAN/tournament. Once DreamHack Summer was moved to August, however, it always looked as though the Masters event would need to be changed.
David has written for games media outlets for the last ten years. With his first major esports role being with Esports News UK covering mostly UK League of Legends. David is also a member of the British Esports Association and is an advisor to them on World of Warcraft Esports. More recently David has worked for Esports Insider and Red Bull as an esports journalist.
David later became Editor at ESTNN and now leads the current team.