What we learned from DH Bucharest

DreamHack ZOWIE Open Bucharest has come to a close and we're ready to take a look back and figure out what we've learned from the eight-team, $100,000 event.

Yet another event is done and dusted and $100,000 in prizemoney allocated, as Virtus.pro emerged victorious from DreamHack ZOWIE Open Bucharest which took place this last weekend.

First of all we'll go over what has happened over the course of the last few days to give you a quick recap in case you missed some of the action.

The Romanian event featured seven teams who attended the previous weekend's SL i-League StarSeries in Kiev, which gave us a lot of context in terms of where the teams stood and what their chances were.

Virtus.pro added another trophy to their cabinet

Virtus.pro and Cloud9 topped their groups with ease, but the other two semi-finalists, Envy and Dignitas, had to fight hard for their place in the top four. Both of them lost their initial battle and had to go through two best-of-three's.

The Americans marched on to the grand final following a match with Envy in which both teams won long streaks of rounds, while Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas's squad escaped Dignitas by the skin of their teeth after the decider, Overpass, came down to a combination of mistakes on Dignitas' part and amazing play from Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski in a 1v5 scenario.

The Poles grabbed the title in dominating fashion, only letting nine rounds slip on each map after Cloud9's baffling Train pick, giving Virtus.pro a Christmasy atmosphere.

Here are some of the best maps from the Bucharest event:

Group stage
HEROIC	34-31	Envy	Mirage	BO1 Initial round
Gambit	14-16	Envy	Cobblestone	BO3 Elimination
Envy	13-16	HEROIC	Nuke	BO3 decider
Playoffs
Virtus.pro	14-16	Dignitas	Cobblestone	Semi-finals
Virtus.pro	16-13	Dignitas	Overpass	Semi-finals

What have we learned then?

Virtus.pro are just fine

When NEO and company shockingly went out in last place a week ago, we weren't quite sure what to make of the team that had broken into the top three following their win at ELEAGUE.

However, historically they've proven to be more than capable of fulfilling the promise that is usually just an awful cliché — coming back stronger. Numerous times have we seen them do poorly online or at select offline events, only to witness them triumph or at least impress at the next one, with MLG Columbus coming to mind as one of the examples.

We shouldn't have worried about Virtus.pro's form

This time it seems their disappointing run in Kiev wasn't quite the same story. In the winning interview, NEO admitted there was more to it than simply bad form and that they didn't take the result to heart whatsoever.

We can only assume there were personal or organizational issues that made them lose focus for the $300,000 event, but one thing we can be certain of is that the Polish roster are very much on their feet and should still be considered huge contenders.

Cloud9 are a force to be reckoned with

Since the addition of Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta, Cloud9 have been a completely different beast online, and now, after three offline events in as many weekends, we can safely say it has translated to offline competition as well.

They weren't greatly contested at Northern Arena, save for the grand final, since the level of competition there was simply not high enough for us to evaluate their true status.

StarSeries helped us understand where Cloud9 stood, but they were lucky enough to avoid most of the dangerous teams and reached the semi-finals with wins over a big underdog in VG.CyberZen, the incomplete Envy roster and FlipSid3.

We can't count Cloud9 out anymore

After the third event, Bucharest, where the American-Canadian lineup only lost to an elite team, we know where to put them. The big losses to Ninjas in Pyjamas in Kiev and Virtus.pro at DreamHack mean they're not ready to break into the elite just yet, but they've also shown conistency against a number of teams below the elite, such as FaZe, Dignitas, Envy, HEROIC and FlipSid3.

Cloud9 are floating somewhere in the middle area, between the elite-level teams and those just below. They haven't figured out how to take the next step just yet, but the days where we counted Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert's team out at bigger events are over.

EnVyUs are making good progress

StarSeries gave us a glimpse of Envy' role adjustments and how they affect the team's playstyle and results, but since they attended the Kiev event with Christophe "⁠SIXER⁠" Xia, we didn't get the full picture. DreamHack provided us with one, as Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt was back in the roster — and played very well up until his underwhelming display in the semi-final.

Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer retained his lurking role, but he finally realized his previous ultra-passive approach was doing more harm than good — making Envy awfully predictable and playing 4v5 more often than not.

At the last two events, he started taking a lot more initiative and became more of an aggressive type of lurker, using valuable information and picks to guide the team as he took over leadership once again.

Happy's transformation seems to be the key to improvement

The 24-year-old wasn't quite as effective in Bucharest as he was at StarSeries, but since the rest of the team delivered on an individual level, especially Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire who had an amazing event, it wasn't all that noticable.

Thanks to Happy's transformation and recently assumed leadership, as well as some of the players being in form, Envy are making good strides towards becoming an elite-level team again. It might take a little while longer, as we saw in the very streaky semi-final affair, but they're getting there.

dignitas' lineup may be the best one yet

Since the beginning of 2016, when Dignitas had a few good tournaments with Jesper "⁠TENZKI⁠" Plougmann and Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye in the roster, we haven't seen the Danes making significant improvement.

Parts of it came down to the team missing a dedicated AWP player. Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen took up the role because he had to, but he was nowhere near comfortable enough with the weapon.

dignitas haven't been nearly this good since February

With René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg replacing Kjaerbye, that problem was solved. Dignitas made up for the lack of power shortly afterwards, replacing TENZKI with Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif.

MSL might be target of much criticism, but we can't get away from the fact that this version of the Danish roster is working better than the previous ones. The last two events proved just that — in both cases they were only rounds away from reaching the grand final, taking huge favourites G2 and Virtus.pro to their limit in the process.

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Nathan 'NBK-' Schmitt Age: 22 Team: Envy Rating 1.0: 1.07 Maps played: 980 KPR: 0.72 DPR: 0.66 Virtus.pro #2 Wiktor 'TaZ' WojtasFilip 'NEO' KubskiJarosław 'pashaBiceps' JarząbkowskiJanusz 'Snax' PogorzelskiPaweł 'byali' Bieliński Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas Age: 30 Team: Virtus.pro Rating 1.0: 1.02 Maps played: 1049 KPR: 0.70 DPR: 0.67 Gambit #17 Dauren 'AdreN' KystaubayevDmitry 'hooch' BogdanovMihail 'Dosia' StolyarovRustem 'mou' TelepovIvan 'spaze' Obrezhan René 'cajunb' Borg Age: 26 Team: Dignitas Rating 1.0: 1.08 Maps played: 786 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.64 Vincent 'Happy' Schopenhauer Age: 24 Team: Envy Rating 1.0: 1.10 Maps played: 842 KPR: 0.76 DPR: 0.66 Filip 'NEO' Kubski Age: 29 Team: Virtus.pro Rating 1.0: 1.03 Maps played: 1054 KPR: 0.69 DPR: 0.66 Jesper 'TENZKI' Plougmann Age: 22 Team: Rogue Rating 1.0: 0.99 Maps played: 455 KPR: 0.67 DPR: 0.66 Emil 'Magisk' Reif Age: 18 Team: Dignitas Rating 1.0: 1.14 Maps played: 299 KPR: 0.77 DPR: 0.64 G2 #3 Richard 'shox' PapillonCédric 'RpK' GuipouyEdouard 'SmithZz' DubourdeauxAdil 'ScreaM' BenrlitomAlexandre 'bodyy' Pianaro Markus 'Kjaerbye' Kjærbye Age: 18 Team: Astralis Rating 1.0: 1.07 Maps played: 605 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.65 Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbert Age: 25 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 503 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.67 Ninjas in Pyjamas #4 Patrik 'f0rest' LindbergChristopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundRichard 'Xizt' LandströmAdam 'friberg' FribergJacob 'pyth' Mourujärvi Cloud9 #5 Jordan 'n0thing' GilbertTyler 'Skadoodle' LathamMike 'shroud' GrzesiekTimothy 'autimatic' TaJake 'Stewie2K' Yip FlipSid3 #15 Yegor 'markeloff' MarkelovAndrey 'B1ad3' GorodenskiyOleksandr 'Shara' HordieyevGeorgi 'WorldEdit' YaskinJan 'wayLander' Rahkonen HEROIC #11 Michael 'Friis' JørgensenAndreas 'MODDII' FridhMarco 'Snappi' PfeifferLukas 'gla1ve' RossanderValdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangså Christophe 'SIXER' Xia Age: 25 Team: Millenium Rating 1.0: 0.98 Maps played: 67 KPR: 0.67 DPR: 0.66 Mathias 'MSL' Lauridsen Age: 21 Team: Dignitas Rating 1.0: 0.92 Maps played: 888 KPR: 0.65 DPR: 0.73 Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire Age: 23 Team: Envy Rating 1.0: 1.06 Maps played: 817 KPR: 0.76 DPR: 0.71 Envy #9 Kenny 'kennyS' SchrubNathan 'NBK-' SchmittDan 'apEX' MadesclaireVincent 'Happy' SchopenhauerTimothée 'DEVIL' Démolon VG.CyberZen #23 Bin 'Savage' LiuBingYuan 'tb' LiZhuo 'advent' LiangWeiJie 'zhokiNg' ZhongKunHua 'LOVEYY' Bai Dignitas #6 Ruben 'RUBINO' VillarroelRené 'cajunb' BorgMathias 'MSL' LauridsenEmil 'Magisk' ReifKristian 'k0nfig' Wienecke FaZe #14 Aleksi 'allu' JalliFabien 'kioShiMa' FieyPhilip 'aizy' AistrupHåvard 'rain' NygaardJoakim 'jkaem' Myrbostad Timothy 'autimatic' Ta Age: 20 Team: Cloud9 Rating 1.0: 1.04 Maps played: 319 KPR: 0.74 DPR: 0.69