forZe, HellRaisers qualify for DreamHack Open January Europe

The participants' list for the $70,000 main event has been finalised following the conclusion of the closed qualifier.

FORZE and HellRaisers, the two invited teams in the closed qualifier, came out on top of the double-elimination bracket over Polish duo Anonymo and StylDunow.

FORZE fielded Volodymyr "⁠Woro2k⁠" Veletniuk and Eugene "⁠Aunkere⁠" Karyat as stand-ins in place of Bogdan "⁠xsepower⁠" Chernikov and Dmitriy "⁠facecrack⁠" Alekseyev, who both missed the qualifier for personal reasons. The Russian squad fought through the upper bracket without dropping a single map, achieving 2-0 victories over Anonymo and HellRaisers despite being pushed to overtime in both series.

The consolidation final saw HellRaisers take on StylDunow in a rematch of their upper bracket encounter. The series went the same way, though, as Nikolaj "⁠kalinka⁠" Rysakov's troops earned another 2-1 victory over Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński's Polish mix on the same maps.

forZe qualified with two stand-ins, Woro2k and Aunkere

FORZE and HellRaisers join Sprout as the final qualified sides for the main event, with the German team defeating BIG in the ESL Meisterschaft grand final to secure their spot. However, Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz's squad later received a direct invitation to the tournament through the ESL World Ranking.

DreamHack Open January Europe is set to take place from January 27-31 and feature a $70,000 prize pool. The eight participants for the online event can be found below:

BIG
Evil Geniuses
Spirit
HellRaisers Gambit
Sprout
FORZE
FunPlus Phoenix HellRaisers #34 Nikolaj 'kalinka' RysakovVadim 'Flarich' KaretinGuy 'anarkez' TrachtmanDmitriy 'ProbLeM' MartinovNikita 'JIaYm' Panyushkin FORZE #26 Dmitriy 'facecrack' AlekseyevAlmaz 'almazer' AsadullinEvgenii 'FL1T' LebedevBogdan 'xsepower' ChernikovAndrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz Age: 25 Team: BIG Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 1608 KPR: 0.74 DPR: 0.70 Nikolaj 'kalinka' Rysakov Age: 26 Team: HellRaisers Rating 1.0: 1.02 Maps played: 723 KPR: 0.71 DPR: 0.70 Evil Geniuses #18 Peter 'stanislaw' JarguzTarik 'tarik' CelikVincent 'Brehze' CayonteEthan 'Ethan' ArnoldTsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov Sprout #25 Timo 'Spiidi' RichterDenis 'denis' HowellMarko 'kressy' ĐorđevićJosef 'faveN' BaumannFritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich FunPlus Phoenix Paweł 'byali' Bieliński Age: 26 Team: StylDunow Rating 1.0: 1.01 Maps played: 1713 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67 Spirit #19 Leonid 'chopper' VishnyakovNikolay 'mir' BityukovViktor 'sdy' OrudzhevAbdul 'degster' GasanovBoris 'magixx' Vorobiev BIG #4 Johannes 'tabseN' WodarzTizian 'tiziaN' FeldbuschFlorian 'syrsoN' RischeIsmailcan 'XANTARES' DörtkardeşNils 'k1to' Gruhne StylDunow Maciek 'Luz' BugajPaweł 'byali' BielińskiMichał 'MICHU' MüllerKonrad 'EXUS' JeńczeńMiłosz 'mhL' Knasiak Gambit #13 Abay 'HObbit' KhassenovTimofey 'interz' YakushinSergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovDmitry 'sh1ro' SokolovVladislav 'nafany' Gorshkov Volodymyr 'Woro2k' Veletniuk Age: 19 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 1.15 Maps played: 41 KPR: 0.79 DPR: 0.67 Dmitriy 'facecrack' Alekseyev Age: 26 Team: FORZE Rating 1.0: 0.99 Maps played: 1528 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.71 Anonymo Janusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiPaweł 'innocent' MocekWiktor 'mynio' KrukKamil 'KEi' PietkunKacper 'Kylar' Walukiewicz Bogdan 'xsepower' Chernikov Age: 22 Team: FORZE Rating 1.0: 1.13 Maps played: 964 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.58 Eugene 'Aunkere' Karyat Age: 20 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 211 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.68