Photo: Helena Kristiansson
The DreamHack brand returns for six stops in 2014, starting April 26-27 in Bucharest, Romania. $200,000 total prize pool will be up for grabs over the entire duration of the circuit.
One more month remains before DreamHack re-embraces competitive StarCraft 2 for another year of tournaments. Kicking off in Romania's capital, the European circuit will visit five stops before the grand closing at DreamHack Winter in late November.
As it is DreamHack tradition, the endeavour has grown in proportions yet again. In addition to the regular stops at Bucharest, Valencia, Stockholm and Jönköping, the tournament will also travel to Moscow in mid September, visiting Russia for the first time in its history.
With the additional stop, the total prize pool has also grown with another $25,000 now totaling the respectful $200,000 spread across the six tournament (5 x $25,000 for the open tournaments and $75,000 for the grand finals). Each open tournament will also award a total of 4,000 WCS points and will qualify the top four players to the Winter finals.
The format of the tournaments has remained more or less the same as last year. For the open brackets it will feature an open bracket into three group stages (now converted to double elimination groups as opposed to the round robins from past years) into a 16-man single elimination bracket. The grand final at DreamHack Winter will use something similar to last year's double elimination bracket.
The stops:
- DreamHack Bucharest: 26-27 April, Sala Polivalenta, Bucharest, Romania
- DreamHack Summer 2014: 14-16 June, Elmia, Jönköping, Sweden
- DreamHack Valencia: 18-19 July, Feria de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
- DreamHack Moscow: 13-14 September, Stadium Live, Moscow, Russia
- DreamHack Stockholm: 26-27 September, Stockholm Globe Arenas, Stockholm, Sweden
- DreamHack Winter 2014: 27-29 November, Elmia, Jönköping, Sweden
Even before circuit's start, there are a couple of stories to look forward to. The 2013 season crowned Taeja as the only three-times champion and sole back-to-back winner of DreamHack and the Korean Terran will surely be coming back in attempt to beat his own record. Only Liquid teammate HerO is close to tying Taeja for the three golds, with the rivalry between the two being almost iconic to the DreamHack circuit.
At the same time, DreamHack has been lacking a foreign champion since Nerchio ruled over Bucharest in 2012. Six Koreans have stood atop the tournament since then but Snute's triumph earlier this year at SeatStory Cup has rekindled the hopes that Westerners would not be completely overwhelmed this time around.
The first colors to the DH canvas are coming April 26-27.
Rotator photo: Helena Kristiansson / esportphoto.com
