With the recent addition of TLAF-Liquid`HuK, oGsInCa, and oGsTOP, DreamHack's invite lineup is one of the strongest for a single weekend SC2 event, comparable to MLG Dallas and IEM Cologne. It's a shame that EG.IdrA couldn't make it, but there's plenty of interesting players attending.

The Race Traitors

Mouz.Morrow and TLAF-Liquid`TLO both switched from Terran to Zerg. While TLO finished a respectable fifth at MLG Dallas, we have yet to even see Morrow's Zerg at a major tournament. Will he or won't he play Z? How good will it be? Will IdrA live up to his promise that "if Morrow wins a single prized tournament with zerg and ill never say the word balance again?"

Europe vs North America

Since IEM we haven't seen a lot of the top European players face off against North American competition. aTn.Socke, Dignitas.Sjow, and Duckload.White-Ra all attended an MLG, but DreamHack will be the first time Tyler, Huk, and Fenix see players like Tarson or Morrow in the brackets. The consensus among top players is that the EU server is slightly harder, and we'll see if that proves to be true.

The Old Schoolers

The first is Madfrog, a former Warcraft 3 pro, finding success in Korea and Europe before retiring in 2005. With the release of SC2, he's signed with SK and plays competitively again. The second is NTT, an old school Brood War gamer known for his biting tongue and unending SCV production. While he hasn't shown impressive tournament results yet, he still remains an interesting name.

From Seoul to Sweden

HuK brought two friends: oGsInCa and oGsTOP. These guys are two of the very best oGs has to offer. InCa is granted an invite slot while TOP almost certainly will qualify through the BYOC qualifiers. Both were eliminated in GSL qualifiers and thus come to Sweden on a mission. It's no vacation, they are here to win. Will DreamHack go the same way as Blizzcon, with Koreans taking first place? We'll see.

Something to Prove

This goes for every qualifier out to make a name for themselves. The invite field at DreamHack is strong, but that just means more opportunity for players like LaLuSh, Adelscott, or eight other qualifiers to show that they belong in this field. Could we see a complete unknown make it deep into this tournament? We saw it before in Korea with Torch qualifying for GSL1.

Predictions

InCa and TOP are the favorites, but InCa especially since he doesn't have to go through qualifiers. After that, it's anyone's tournament, with a lot of the invites able to take best-of series from each other. It should make for a very exciting weekend -- pay attention especially to groups C, E, and F.