Extra Salt punch ticket to DreamHack Open March
Extra Salt became the first team to punch their ticket to DreamHack Open March after defeating RBG 2-0 in the upper bracket final yesterday evening. RBG will face Recon 5, who defeated Secret Club in the lower bracket final, tonight at 9PM EST.
Extra Salt, featuring Edgar "MarKE" Maldonado in place of Ian "motm" Hardy, breezed through the bracket without dropping a map to Oceanus, Recon 5, or RBG to advance to the main event. They also managed to 16-0 Oceanus on Train to kick off this qualifier run.
HeadShotKings found themselves in the Closed Qualifier after GGPR failed to field a complete roster, but were promptly dispatched without winning a map in matches against Secret Club and then against Mythic in the lower bracket. RBG took down Mythic and then Secret Club in three maps to reach the upper bracket final, while Recon 5 lost the upper bracket semifinal to Extra Salt, then strung together a sweep against Mythic and a three-map win over Secret Club to pull together a short lower bracket run to the consolidation final.
At the start of the upper bracket final RBG kept things close on Inferno and held a slim 8-7 lead at the half, but Extra Salt pulled away on the attacking side, led by Justin "FaNg" Coakley's 28 kills. Jerric "wiz" Jiang led RBG with 23 frags in the loss.
For the third series in a row Extra Salt opted for Train and it continued to be fruitful for them. It wasn't quite as dominant as their bout with Oceanus, but Josh "oSee" Ohm continued to feel at home on the map, he finished with a 1.79 rating and 25 kills. Twelve of those kills came via the AWP and six of them were opening kills.
Extra SaltRBG| Extra Salt |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
50 - 33 | +17 | 102.2 | 84.0% | 1.54 |
 Justin 'FaNg' Coakley |
47 - 29 | +18 | 97.1 | 78.0% | 1.53 |
 Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado |
40 - 25 | +15 | 81.1 | 84.0% | 1.32 |
 Johnny 'JT' Theodosiou |
32 - 25 | +7 | 78.3 | 82.0% | 1.21 |
| Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek |
29 - 31 | -2 | 62.3 | 72.0% | 0.91 |
| RBG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jerric 'wiz' Jiang |
37 - 40 | -3 | 77.5 | 54.0% | 0.92 |
| Connor 'chop' Sullivan |
25 - 39 | -14 | 64.6 | 66.0% | 0.82 |
| Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
29 - 41 | -12 | 64.0 | 56.0% | 0.77 |
| Kyle 'Wolffe' Greenfield |
30 - 43 | -13 | 64.1 | 64.0% | 0.76 |
| Colby 'Walco' Walsh |
22 - 36 | -14 | 59.1 | 50.0% | 0.70 |
The field for DreamHack Open March now includes the following teams:
| Liquid |
 Extra Salt |
| Bad News Bears |
 paiN |
| High Coast |
Rebirth |
| Triumph |
TBD |
As previously mentioned, the final spot will be filled by the winner of tonight's consolidation final between RBG and Recon 5. That series begins at 9PM EST and can be watched here.
