The groups and initial matchups for the $100,000 DreamHack in Rotterdam have been announced by the tournament organizer.

DreamHack Open Rotterdam is one of the first notable international CS:GO events in the Netherlands, and will feature eight teams battling out in the tried-and-tested DreamHack Open format, with $100,000 up for grabs. The tournament will take place on October 18-20, with a mix of different-tier teams in the competition.

After their victory at BLAST, AVANGAR are the prime candidates for the trophy in Rotterdam

The highest-ranked squad is AVANGAR, but the remaining invited teams FORZE, CR4ZY, ex-DreamEaters, and HEROIC all look capable of doing some damage. Coming from the European qualifier is HAVU, while Asterion grabbed a the Benelux spot while playing with Thomas "⁠Thomas⁠" Utting and Joseph "⁠Luzuh⁠" Loose. Lastly, Besiktas earned their spot at the event by winning the all-women DreamHack Showdown in July.

The eight teams have been split into the following groups:

Group A
AVANGAR
ex-DreamEaters
HEROIC
Besiktas Group B
FORZE
CR4ZY
HAVU
Asterion

The initial matches at the event in the Netherlands will be as follows:

AVANGAR vs. Besiktas
FORZE vs. Asterion
ex-DreamEaters vs. HEROIC
CR4ZY vs. HAVU

DreamHack Open Rotterdam is the fourth Open tournament of the year, with three more stops to follow in 2019: Atlanta, Jönköping, and Sevilla.

FORZE #15 Dmitriy 'facecrack' AlekseyevAlmaz 'almazer' AsadullinEvgenii 'FL1T' LebedevBogdan 'xsepower' ChernikovAndrey 'Jerry' Mekhryakov DreamEaters #23 Semyon 'kinqie' LisitsynSvyatoslav 'svyat' DovbakhVladislav 'Krad' KravchenkoAnton 'speed4k' TitovIgor 'Forester' Bezotecheskiy AVANGAR #5 Dauren 'AdreN' KystaubayevSanjar 'SANJI' KulievTimur 'buster' TulepovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' Ali Asterion #94 Bernardus 'Bernard' StornebrinkMark 'NexFox' BreetveldPatrick 'Pat ' van der BijlNino 'NiNo' RoosSteven 'blackie' Groeneveld HEROIC #28 Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferCasper 'cadiaN' MøllerPatrick 'es3tag' HansenJohannes 'b0RUP' BorupMartin 'stavn' Lund HAVU #37 Eetu 'sAw' SahaLasse 'ZOREE' UronenOlli 'sLowi' PitkänenJoonas 'doto' ForssAaro 'hoody' Peltokangas Thomas 'Thomas' Utting Age: 21 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 1.05 Maps played: 332 KPR: 0.74 DPR: 0.69 Besiktas Zainab 'zAAz' TurkieJulia 'juliano' KiranMeyssa 'Missa' BellouatiPetra 'Petra' StokerAnastasia 'kr4sy' Khlobystina Joseph 'Luzuh' Loose Age: 21 Team: No team Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 265 KPR: 0.69 DPR: 0.65 CR4ZY #20 Luka 'emi' VukovićNestor 'LETN1' TanićOtto 'ottoNd' SihvoGeorgi 'SHiPZ' GrigorovRokas 'EspiranTo' Milasauskas