The playoffs of the Dreamhack Open kick off Monday, with 3 best of 3 matchups. These are all upper bracket matchups, which takes a bit of pressure off as if you lose you drop to the lower bracket as opposed to being eliminated. Lock is at 7am EST, so make sure to get those lineups in early. The games are:
Astralis (84% implied win probability) vs Godsent
Fnatic (68%) vs North
Big (60%) vs G2
Pricing/Ownership
The pricing on the favorites on this slate is fairly tight, we’ll likely need to either roster a bottom fragger or go to an underdog to make the lineups fit. There’s a couple of “bottom fragger” options that I like as well as a couple of underdogs we could play. Let’s jump into the games.
We nailed the Godsent “upset” over Faze last time out, now they face a much tougher opponent in Astralis. Astralis are the best team in the world, but even considering that I was a little surprised by how heavily in their favor the line was. I expected Astralis to be about 75% favorites but instead they come in at 84%. We have seen them drop maps to Heroic and G2 recently, I would put Godsent at about the same caliber of team as those two right now. With how cheap Godsent are priced, they could be the better play from this game if they manage to push it to 3 maps. Maden and Styko are basically free at $5k and $4.2k respectively, and Farlig at $5.8k also frees up a lot of salary. I’ll have a mix of one-offs and cheap stacks of those 3, and in the stacks I’ll also mix in zehN, who I expect to go almost completely overlooked at $7.0k.
Of course, I’ll also have exposure to the Astralis side of the matchup. Device, Dupreeh, and es3tag are all pricey, but Magisk and Glaive are both cheap. I’ll mostly be focused on Magisk here, and if I can fit them any of the more expensive plays I like Device, Dupreeh, es3tag in that order. I’ll try to avoid Glaive as he’s been the clear bottom fragger most of the time recently. I expect him to be popular, as he is the cheapest way to get exposure to the biggest favorite, so I may even go full fade here.
The next game up is Fnatic vs North. North won their group, going 2-0, however their wins were over Ence and Sprout (both 2-1 wins at that), not exactly the toughest competition out there. Right before that they lost to both Forze and Gambit. Fnatic on the other hand, got to the upper bracket by way of beating OG twice, both times 2-1. In between they lost to Vitality 2-1 although I’m not really holding that against them as Zywoo went absolutely bonkers in the 2nd and 3rd maps of that series. All this is to say, I expect Fnatic to come out on top here. Krimz has been playing great of late, and at $9.2k he’s cheaper than the other top options on favorites. I like both him and Brollan considering their prices. I may hold my nose and play JW as cost saver in a couple of lineups, as at only $6k he could easily pay off that salary. Golden is also super cheap at only $4.8k and I expect him to carry a decent amount of ownership. I’ll likely have some too, as he has flashed occasional upside, and it doesn’t take much at that price.
I actually prefer the Godsent value to the North value, however if I want to play some Astralis expensive stacks (meaning I obviously won’t be playing Godsent), I’ll likely turn to North. I like the price points of Cajunb and Lekro in particular, and even Aizy all the way down at $4k is playable.
The final game of the slate is Big vs G2. Neither team comes in in amazing form, although I do agree with the odds that Big should be slightly favored. Xantares is priced way up after his huge game against Godsent, but I like him as much as any of the other expensive targets on this slate. Syrson is also priced up and it’s tough to fit both of them, so I imagine most Big stackers will end up with 1 or those 2 plus Tabsen, who is relatively cheap but has really been struggling lately. He only has 1 series out of 7 in October with a positive KD overall, and that was a +2 over 3 maps against Heroic on October 7th. I’m going to try to pay up for both Xantares and Syrson when I play Big. I don’t have much interest in Tizian or k1to either so it will be mostly 2 stacks of Big for me.
On the other side, I like Nexa a lot at only $7.4k, and Hunter is a solid play as well, even though he is fairly expensive. I’ll have a bit of exposure to kennyS as well, but I won’t have any of Jackz or Amanek, as both have really struggled lately.
Top Captains
I’m a fan of either paying all the way up or all the way down at captain on Monday. Krimz and Brollan are two of my favorite captains, as I’m confident in Fnatic in this matchup and they should eat up most of the fantasy points. Same goes for Xantares and Syrson on Big, although I’m slightly less confident that they pick up the win. I’ll have a bit of Hunter and Nexa from G2 as well, as both have big upside if G2 pulls off the upset. I’ll likely fade Astralis captains, as they are expensive, spread their fantasy points around, and I already mentioned I like the Godsent side (for fantasy) in that matchup.
Speaking of Godsent, Maden or Styko at captain frees up a ton of salary, as does Farlig to a slightly lesser extent, and lets you jam studs from whoever else you want. I like that build a decent amount and will probably have it in 20-30% of my lineups. You can do the same thing with CajunB or Lekro if you want to fit the Astralis studs.
That’s it for me, good luck on Monday!
