North are this year’s DreamHack Open Valencia champions, and it’s their second DreamHack Open title in a row.
With Oscar “Mixwell” Canellas acting as a stand-in, the Danish lineup secured their second championship win of the year, and they’ll be taking home a larger portion of the $100,000 prize purse at the event. The last time North won a title was at DreamHack Open Tours in May, where they defeated other big names like Team Envy, Gambit Esports, and Hellraisers.
Related: Mixwell to tryout for North at DreamHack Open Valencia
In the group stage, which took place over the past few days, North took down Giants Gaming in their initial match (Inferno 16-8) and lost to Heroic in the following winners match (Mirage 16-10). The Danes then came back stronger and defeated AGO Esports in their Group A decider match with a 2-1 scoreline, thanks to victories on Overpass (16-14) and Train (16-12). Mixwell had the best stats against AGO, averaging 23 kills per map and 90.5 damage per round.
North had a brief time in the playoffs today since they secured two sweeps vs. Danish counterpart Fragsters in the semifinals (Train 16-7 and Nuke 16-10) and against rising Brazilian team Luminosity Gaming in the grand finals (Inferno 16-7 and Mirage 16-9).
Valdemar “valde” Bjorn Vangsa was the biggest factor in North’s playoff wins today. Against Fragsters, he maintained 26 kills per map, a 111.3 ADR, and a 1.64 HLTV 2.0 rating. In the team’s last performance of the day, he averaged 29 kills, a 130.6 ADR, and a 1.88 HLTV 2.0 rating. These statlines, along with his good numbers in the group stage, earned him the MVP award for the event.
This championship seems to be another good confidence builder for Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen’s squad. North will have some time off from traveling and competition in the near future, because their next event is DreamHack Masters Stockholm in late August. This is right after the player break, so it should be a good amount of time to sort out whether they’ll keep Mixwell or if they’ll have Daniel Mertz come back to the team.
