As the second and last day of DH London closes we are here to reflect on the amazing playoffs.
The semifinals
The first match to be held in a best-of-three was Team SoloMid against Team Dignitas. Although their last encounters seemed to highly favor TSM, many expected dignitas to turn up anyways against their land mates. The first map, however, went to TSM in a quite convincing fashion as they won Mirage 16-6. On Overpass, which is actually a signature map for the tier one team, dignitas managed to put up a real fight, as momentums were built up and destroyed again. They were so close to taking over the map, but even with 14 rounds on their board, TSM made a terrific comeback and won Overpass 16-14, walking confidently into the finals.
The other semifinal featured Team EnVyUs, who had gone through the tournament not really being challenged so far, and Copenhagen Wolves, the ones that took out Gamers2 in an unbelievable match on Mirage before. Both maps went to nV, again they seemed to just rush through their enemies, taking them out without hesitating. CPH could not really put up a fight and the Boys In Blue went into the finals as well.
The finals
Seeing TSM against EnVyUs may be a flashback to ESL One Cologne, where the French were able to succeed to the finals. Since they put up the new lineup, they did not drop a single match to TSM. The analysts (especially Thorin), however, were certain that this could be a revenge for Cologne and the Danes could actually be the favourites. In regards to the vetoes, they assumed that TSM would eliminate Cobblestone and EnVy were to ban Overpass. On both maps the enemy teams had shown brutal performances lately. They were right, as TSM got rid of Cobblestone and Cache choosing Dust2, and EnVyUs dropped Overpass and Train, electing Inferno as their map. Mirage was thus the only map left for the decider map.
Since Dust2 was the only map the Danes had beat nV on in recent past, the analysts were pretty certain they would win there. Halftime points did actually favor EnVyUs, but then again TSM made a great comeback gaining a huge momentum, which was suddenly crushed as nV returned from a short timeout, again showing up perfectly and winning rounds after rounds, paving their way onto match point and eventually a convincing 16-13 win.
Inferno was an EnVyUs-pick and after some struggle they managed to put up a 8-7 halftime. After TSM’s switch to terrorist-side they seemed to get the upper hand, but still nV did not lose their confidence and patience, presenting unbelievable aces by Happy and kennyS. TSM tried everything they could, bringing it to 13 points while EnVyUs being behind with 10, again carrying a momentum. EnVyUs opted to take a tactical pause similarly to the previous match on Dust2. After that their players were literally unstoppable, giving TSM no room to breathe and to act. Incredible performances by especially kennyS led to them taking the map with a 16-13 score board, thus winning the finals of DreamHack London 2015 as well as $20,000 and a beautiful trophy to take home.
Prize distribution:
1. Team EnVyUs - $20,000
2. Team Solomid - $6,000
3-4. Team Dignitas - $3,000
3-4. CPH Wolves - $3,000
5-6. Gamers2 - $2,000
5-6. EZskins - $2,000
7-8. SK Gaming - $2,000
7-8. Renegades - $2,000
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