BIG look to snipe EPL spot in Atlanta amidst low interest from NA teams for DH Knockout BYOC
In mid June, ESL announced the DreamHack Knockout event series consisting of two events set to take place at DreamHack Atlanta and DreamHack Stockholm. Both of these BYOC events were created to offer a secondary path for teams to qualify to ESL Pro League outside of the traditional ESL Challenger League path or via a direct VRS invite.
Despite the promise of qualifying directly to an S-tier event, the DreamHack Knockout Atlanta event was heavily criticized by NA at its inception due to the high ticket price and high costs that come with bringing PCs, potentially cross-country, to a BYOC LAN. Many speculated that the event would see poor turnout dominated by larger organizations that could afford the investment for a potential EPL spot.
Unfortunately this criticism has seemingly come to fruition as only six teams have signed up for the event at the time of publication, with international teams like BIG and Game Hunters seemingly using the low turnout from NA hopefuls to try and snipe a spot.
The decision by BIG to come to North America to snipe an EPL spot is particularly egregious as unlike Game Hunters, who are FRAG regulars, BIG seem set to fly to Atlanta to smash FlyQuest RED and a handful of mix teams to claim an EPL spot after a disaster year for the German organization. This is likely far from ESL's vision for the event, however as it currently stands the event is unaffordable for many NA team and quite frankly unattractive compared to events like Fragadelphia.
The team list for the DreamHack Knockout BYOC tournament currently consists of:
• 
25 to Life
• 
BIG
• 
FlyQuest RED
• 
Game Hunters
• JPark Math Club
• Lily Pad
With two months until the event starts, there is still hope for further signups to come through especially as Fragadelphia has offered to rent out PCs for the LAN. Additionally, ESL will offer travel support to the winner of ESEA Advanced Season 54, however the team is still incredibly unlikely to hit its 32 team cap before it starts on October 31st.
Interested teams may sign up for the event here.
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