Lions swe steamrolled mousesports in a very suspicious last group stage match many will be questioning the legitimacy of as Group D came to a close. Both teams knew beforehand, due to Dreamhack Winter's structure, that the winner of the game would be drawn against AGAiN in the side of the bracket which also would mean facing the winner of Natus Vincere and SK Gaming in the semi-final. As a result it was in both team's favour, in the long-term view, to try and finish 2nd.



As it was mouz, the favourite for the group, were the ones who finished in second. They won only two rounds as terrorists on mirage. A lot about the game seemed very suspicious, and at times even overtly obvious, to suggest mouz were trying to lose. They force bought one AK, two deagles and had the others with glocks on one round. Their much-famed tactical prowess seemed non-existent as they continously ran simple and ineffective strategies in each site. There was even a point in time where one of the mouz players attempted a failed knife attack.

Lions even called them out after the knife incident, with Emil 'FYRR73' Karlsson saying that the Germans weren't playing seriously, and that he would watch their demos to see if they tried to knife in the quarter-finals.





This is not the first time there have been some suspicious losses which have yielded top teams easier bracket runs. At WCG 2010 mTw knew if they won their group that they would likely face Na`Vi, the team who had never lost to them in a Bo3, in the quarter-finals of the tournament, meaning the loser would go home without a medal. Instead the Danes managed to lose to an unknown k29 team from Belarus, giving them a bracket which saw them reach the final and win silver medals.

Likewise at IEM IV Chengdu fnatic were upset by Chinese team TyLoo and went through in second place in their group. Since their group was played first of all and the other teams knew anyone who placed first could be drawn against fnatic, the most dominant team of the year, in the playoffs it just so happened that a number of top teams finished second in their groups. mouz lost to wNv.cn and EG lost to TitaNs in the last games of their groups.

Ultimately it falls on organisers to change from this system, where teams know who they will play based on their results, or else it only makes strategical sense for teams to purposely plot easier paths. If mouz is to win Dreamhack they likely will have to play SK, Na`Vi or AGAiN eventually anyway, but if they are to lose to one of those teams then if it is in the final they'll walk home with much more money and a better placing than if it is in the other two playoff rounds.