The Place Bonaventure was the location over the weekend as the Danes of North completely dominated the competition on their way to being crowned winners of DreamHack Montreal 2017.
Huge upset avoided early
The toughest match for North came in their initial Group Stage clash, where they found themselves in a titanic battle with the team considered the weakest at this tournament; Gale Force Esports. The map was Cobblestone, where after dropping the first three rounds on their CT side, North strung together 11 in a row before losing the final round of the half for a dominant 11-4 opening.
Gale Force responded, however, winning six of the first eight rounds on their CT side to peg the score back to 13-10. After North secured two more to put themselves on map point, Gale Force claimed four in a row, resulting in a 15-14 score. North then just edged out Gale Force in the final round, securing a nail-biting 16-14 win and narrowly avoiding a gargantuan upset.
Kinguin no match
Next up for North was Kinguin, who had upset CLG in the first stage of group play. On Mirage, North once again utilized a string of victories to dominate the first half; in this case winning 12 of 13 (including 11 straight) on their T side for a 12-3 halftime lead.
Unfortunately for North, they also repeated their weakness of letting their opponents back into the game during the second half as they dropped the opening seven rounds on their CT side. North were able to recover though, capturing four of the final five rounds for a 16-11 win and the first seed out of Group A.
Consistency wins through
North faced off against North America’s new-look Cloud9 in the Semifinals, and it was to be a less competitive series than many had predicted.
On Cloud9’s pick of Train, North dominated from the start, grabbing the first eight rounds on their T side. While Cloud9 did scrape together a few rounds towards the end of the half, North went into the halftime break with an impressive 11-4 lead.
North then won the pistol, which was not shocking given Cloud9’s dreadful pistol rounds since the formation of this line-up. They also grabbed the following two rounds to extend their advantage to 14-4.
Cloud9 did claim two rounds in a row but it was far too little too late as North picked up the two final games needed for a 16-6 map one victory. Star player k0nfig had an absurd performance with 27 kills in just 22 rounds of play.
The next map was Cobblestone, where once again North jumped out to an 11-4 halftime lead, this time on their CT side. After North unsurprisingly won the pistol and subsequent two rounds for an identical 14-4 advantage, Cloud9 did show some grit and determination by pulling off seven wins in a row. North slammed the door shut on the C9 comeback, however, picking up the final two rounds for a 16-11 victory. Steady AWPer (sniper) cajunb had a stellar performance with 30 kills.
Immortals forfeit opener
In a shocking turn of events, North’s opponents Immortals had three players show up late to the Finals, giving the Danes a forfeited win on map one.
The two teams then moved on to Cobblestone where North, in a spookily similar style, secured the opening 11 rounds for another 11-4 halftime lead.
Immortals opened up the second half by acquiring the first three rounds to get to within four rounds of North before the Danes all but finished off the Finals by grabbing four games in a row for map point. Immortals did scrape together two further rounds before North secured the final one necessary for a 16-9 victory and with it the championship. K0nfig continued to lead the way for the Danish side, dropping 26 kills in 25 rounds.
North picked up the $50,000 first place prize with their Finals victory as they went one better than their 2nd place at DreamHack Masters Malmo 2017. It’s been a steady improvement this year for the Danes with strong performances not only in Montreal and Malmo but also at the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, where they also finished 2nd.
