The man – the legend – the Toxinator. Initially rumored to skip the tournament because of the mappool, Toxic made up his mind and has been getting in lots of games on both Sinister and Cure. It's often hard to predict Toxic's performance in tournaments because he seldom takes part in online cups and is known for exotic practise routines – such as practising standard situations in warmup for hours or as of lately playing 1v1 ca on duel maps.

However the last few weeks Toxic has been facing a lot of strong players in practises and doing exceptionally well which likely helped him secure a top seed. The last two weeks his record against other top players is:

7-7 vs av3k
4-0 vs spart1e
6-2 vs ash
2-3 vs fazz
1-2 vs cypher
3-1 vs cooller

November was a good month for Toxic fans as he made several appearances on FaceitTV. Johan reminded everyone of his unique style with some impressive performances most notably playing an absolutely flawless game of Bloodrun against Cypher. Oddly enough toxic who is known for his suffocating control gave away many items for free without second thought. Especially on Lost World Toxic made no effort to protect the red from Cypher, at times it seemed deliberately giving it away. Perhaps Toxic feels that as long as he has a stack and good position his aim is enough to make him virtually immortal. If you think about it it does sort of make sense – if you have superior fighting skills to anybody else it might be reasonable to avoid risky areas such as the red armor even if it means allowing the opponent to stack up. As long as Toxic keeps mega control he will always have the bigger stack and aim isn't the issue. However Toxic ended up losing the game so that strategy will need refinement.

Fazz, the second Swedish top seed, couldn't possibly be a more different player than Toxic. While you would describe Toxic as an emotionless killer, fazz is more of a mad scientist. You will see him make fake rocketjumps, try to misdirect players with sound cues and set elaborate traps because that's what he does. But another part of what makes fazz who he is are his risky plays, crazy rocketjumps and his spontaneousness. A delight for spectators but unfortunately often his demise as big games get decided by the smallest mistakes. A successful rocketjump to steal an item might secure a small advantage but a failure can cost a frag and perhaps the game.

The part of fazz' game that is most impressive to me personally is his ability to read opponents. I won a lesson from fazz by winning a Jeesports Amateur cup a couple of years ago and we ended up playing Furious Heights at some point. And fazz kept guessing exactly where I was and what I was doing while we were on opposite sides of the map! I've since tried it myself when playing with people on comms and failed miserably which leads me to believe fazz must be a wallhacker or a psychic. Games like these make it clear that it's the latter.

Recently rumor has it that fazz lowered his sensitivity and decreased his fov in an attempt to improve his aim and supposedly his shafting has been very impressive. Of course a lower sensitivity and fov typically hinder the movement and overall perception of the game. It would make sense for fazz to try to change his game style though since he hasn't had any big lan victories during the last years. And it would only seem logical to try to solidify his game, rely less on spontaneousness and risks and more on his reads and tricks. Malicious tongues, however, might claim he is selling his soul for a spot on the podium. Only time will tell what kind of fazz we will see at Dreamhack.

Ze Dem0n has been around in the duel scene ever since early 2010 when the Belgian player managed to qualify for the IEM european finals. Other IEM events, UGC, Adroits and countless Dreamhacks followed but dem0n was never regarded as favorite, nor was he able to land any significant victories. It wasn't for a lack of chances - if dem0n lost he didn't lose badly, always puting up a good fight and challenging even the best players. But other than a lone victory against czm during Dreamhack Summer 2011 he never actually managed to beat any notable players on lan throughout the years. When asked about it during an interview in 2012 Romain stated "I think I miss some cold blood above all". A notion he repeated on stream a few days ago when questioned about his recent match against Cypher in the 125fps league.

Despite all that dem0n is widely considered underrated - perhaps to an extent where you'd have to ask yourself whether he might be getting overrated by now. When there is talks about who will surprise at Dreamhack dem0ns name always gets mentioned, some going as far as calling him a contender. A big reason for his fans' optimism are his recent faceit results, having finally been able to secure the first place not only once but twice. Most notably beating strenx, cypher and av3k on his way to victory in March this year. Dem0n has proven he has the skill to beat anybody. It will come down to performing at his absolute best when it really matters. One has to wonder whether the added pressure will allow him to.

If you have read Dreamhack topics on Esreality chances are you are familiar with Fraze. His dedication to keeping Toxicity in the DH-mappool is no surprise as Fraze has shown to be a fan of smaller maps often playing Hektik, Aerowalk and Toxicity during his stay in Europe.
When researching this article I was actually shocked to see Fraze hasn't won any Faceits while he was over in Europe as it felt like he had quite an impact on the scene. He did win some level 10 cups defeating pavel and dem0n and managed to eliminate cypher in one of the Faceit Sunday cups. He also showed good results in practises and seemed to transition seamlessly from playing a rather limited pool of Australian players to the European scene.

Fraze just as his brother and the South Africans will be a big question mark coming into the tournament. Has he improved since playing in Europe earlier this year? One can guess but nobody really knows. It is likely that Fraze faces a problem that Rapha often brings up: There simply aren't enough players in Australia who are on his level to practise with. And those that are – Dandaking, Ventz, Python – aren't very active. The result are impressive statistics: Fraze's record on Cure and Sinister is 55-0 and 55-1 respectively. But has Fraze had enough practise out of control? Is he familiar with traps good players will set, spots they will hide in? He will be practising with his brother a lot, no doubt. Dreamhack will show whether that is enough.

Visa troubles are sorted – Bpatela will be at Dreamhack! He is a player not many will have heared of. The Ukrainian has no notable archievements and speaks no English so he doesn't get much exposure to the casual viewer. At the same time every decent dueler will be well aware of him and his abilities. Initially plagued by his bad connection Bpatela started out as the epitome of +back. While being able to challenge good players on maps like Bloodrun and Lost World he didn't really have a chance to compete when aim came into play. But things changed, he was able to sort out his connection issues and started to broaden his horizon playing more maps and developing a more agressive style. As a result Bpatela is somebody all players in the group should be concerned with. Very well capable to secure a quick lead and exceptional at bringing it home. If you have doubts Bpatela has a chance to pass his group watch him face off against fazz in the 125fps league.

What should be a concern for Bpatela is his lack of experience. He visited a Ukrainian lan in 2012 and did fairly well taking second place behind Reaper. But of course Dreamhack is something entirely different. The level of sound is constantly high, there are tons of spectators moving around and the pressure is really on. Some people can cope with it without problems. Others crumble under the pressure. Bpatela will have to keep his composure and play his absolute best if he wants to reach the playoffs.

November the 4th of 2012 marks the day Sothis transitioned from random Esreality spammer to a notable duel player. The Dane followed Pavel's footsteps who gained recognition by unexpectedly beating k1llsen, only this time Pavel ended up as victim. Unlike the Russian, however, Sothis didn't really follow up on his success and struggles to deliver new upsets in tournaments. At the same time his practise performances are fairly impressive. He is regularly able to hold his ground against players like Spart1e, Matrox and Fazz excelling in particular on his home maps Lost World and Toxicity. The discrepancy in his results also reflects in his playstyle. In officials Sothis seems to play a very defensive game relying on his aim and map knowledge to survive until the perfect moment to strike. In contrast practise games feature Sothis as Rambo flying around the map firing rockets at everything that moves. And somehow that seems to work better!

With players like Fazz, Fraze and Zeun in the group who gladly play an agressive game it might well be worth trying to up the speed against them and make it game of aim and movement. At the same time Toxic, Dem0n, Bpatela and Brescia will punish any unmindful agression. It will be up to Sothis to figure out a way to use his strengths right and adjust to his opponents on the fly during the tournament. In any case practise games show that Sothis is capable of taking down anyone in the group.

Another Scandinavian One-hit wonder and exposed (c) Jamerio wallhacker is the Norwegian zeun, known for defeating Cooller on Aerowalk in one of the early Faceit cups. Like Sothis we haven't seen much of Zeun since. Unlike Sothis practise results don't speak well in favor of Zeun either. One of the few players attending Dreamhack to hover below 2000 elo Zeun has been playing a lot the last weeks but without much success. A major reason of that seems to be the fact that he only picked up the game again about three weeks ago barely touching Quake for months before that. With only around 20 games played on Cure and Sinister Zeun is still improving on the maps and generally getting back into shape so his results might paint a distorted picture. If he uses the remaining time until Dreamhack well there might be a chance for him to catch up and challenge the other players in his group. If not – zeun will certainly cause some trouble on his home map Aerowalk for everyone attending.

Someone coming back from a long time of inactivity might look at this list of players and will probably recognize Fazz and Toxic... and perhaps also Brescia. In fact the three of them met before all having attended ESWC 2005 in Paris. The Dane never kept a high profile but has been around in the competitive duel scene forever also plays Quake Live since the beginning. The first years Lars gave Quake a more casual approach though, only playing Aerowalk with the occational Bloodrun thrown in on some late evenings.

Something changed in him though, perhaps the Chech tdm lan gave him a new lease of life. Now known as Larslarslars he has been preparing very actively for Dreamhack. Lars seems to practise exclusively against good players and has a very balanced practise routine giving all maps a fair share of play time. Brescia's results have been mixed though, while showing promise against other sub-top players like Kronic, Sothis and Gekko winning most of their encounters he has been struggeling a lot against Fazz who appears to be his main practise partner only rarely managing to edge out a map win. A negative factor could be the fact that Brescia is trying to become a jack of all trades not really favoring any map in his pracise while in reality putting a focus on a few specific maps might be more advantageous. Afterall you only have to win three maps to win a match. Catching up to the top players on all of the maps in the few months Lars has been practising might just not be possible. On the other hand Brescia can adjust his map picking to his opponents and maybe abuse their weaker maps. Regardless on a good day Brescia could take anyone in the group. He will hope that good day will be a week from now.