DreamHack Open December groups revealed

The Swedish tournament organizer has also announced the initial set of matches.

The teams forming the two groups for the $100,000 DreamHack Open December that will take place online on December 10-13 have been drawn, and are made up of four invited teams and four teams that qualified through different avenues.

Group A features three CIS squads including the top-ranked Virtus.pro (No. 16) and FORZE, who were invited to the event, and Espada, the winners of the closed qualifier. Rounding out the group is the female XSET squad who made it to the tournament as the winners of DreamHack Showdown Summer.

Group B has two invitees in Gambit and Nemiga, the former having shown very strong form in recent times and coming in as the DreamHack Open November champions. The group is then rounded out by SAW and Movistar Riders, champions of the Iberia qualifier and ESL Masters Season 8, respectively.

Gambit will be fighting for another DreamHack Open title

The eight teams have been placed in two four-team groups that will be played out using the GSL double elimination best-of-three format. The top two teams in each group will then proceed to a single elimination best-of-three playoff bracket that will culminate in a best-of-five grand final on championship Sunday.

Group A
Virtus.pro
FORZE
Espada
XSET Group B
Gambit
Nemiga
SAW
Movistar Riders

The first set of matches will start at 13:00 on Thursday, December 10, with four teams playing two opening bouts, one from each group. The second set of matches will start at 16:30 , and will close out the two remaining opening series of the tournament.

The Group A match in the first round of matches will feature Virtus.pro going up against XSET, while Group B will have Nemiga and SAW fighting to proceed through the upper bracket.

The second round of matches will therefore be FORZE vs. Espada from Group A on one hand and Gambit vs. Movistar Riders from Group B on the other.

The initial matches are:

Thursday, December 10

13:00 Virtus.pro vs. XSET
13:00 Nemiga vs. SAW

16:30 FORZE vs. Espada
16:30 Gambit vs. Movistar Riders

Movistar Riders #49 Lucas 'steel' LopesSebastian 'larsen' LarsenAlejandro 'alex' MasanetAlejandro 'mopoz' Fernández-Quejo CanoKristjan 'shokz' Jakobson FORZE #28 Dmitriy 'facecrack' AlekseyevAlmaz 'almazer' AsadullinEvgenii 'FL1T' LebedevBogdan 'xsepower' ChernikovAndrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov Espada #29 Dmitriy 'Dimaoneshot' BandurkaDmitry 'S0tF1k' ForostyankoVladislav 'FinigaN' UsovAbdul 'degster' GasanovRobert 'Patsi' Isyanov Gambit #19 Abay 'HObbit' KhassenovTimofey 'interz' YakushinSergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovDmitry 'sh1ro' SokolovVladislav 'nafany' Gorshkov Nemiga #21 Aleksandr 'mds' RubetsRassim 'Jyo' ValijevAnton 'speed4k' TitovAnton 'boX' BurkoIgor 'lollipop21k' Solodkov XSET Zainab 'zAAz' TurkieJulia 'juliano' KiranMichaela 'mimi' LintrupPetra 'Petra' StokerAnastasia 'kr4sy' Khlobystina Virtus.pro #16 Sanjar 'SANJI' KulievTimur 'buster' TulepovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' AliMareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis SAW #35 Omar 'arki' ChakkorChristopher 'MUTiRiS' FernandesRicardo 'roman' OliveiraTiago 'JUST' MouraRenato 'stadodo' Gonçalves Time is adjusted to your selected timezone