DreamHack Dallas 2025

by Wax

Following herO's drough-ending run for Protoss in GSL Season 1, StarCraft II's summer tournament frenzy continues this weekend with DreamHack Dallas.

With $50,000 in prize money and four qualifying spots at the 2025 Esports World Cup on the line, the Texas event has attracted a player roster worthy of the world championship itself. Does that mean we're headed toward an inevitable rematch of Serral vs Clem in the finals, or will a new contender emerge from the deep pool of participants?

Schedule and Format

All matchdays begin at 15:00 GMT (+00:00)

[An official stream will be provided, but details have not been announced at this time.]

The tournament begins with the participants split into four different double-elimination brackets, with a maximum of 32-players per bracket (128 maximum total sign-ups for the tournament).

These double-elimination brackets will be played over the course of the first two days of the event (May 23-24), with the top two players from each bracket qualifying for the playoffs (eight players total). The final eight players will compete in a single-elimination playoff bracket on the final day of the event (May 25).

• Day 1 (May 23)
  • First half of double-elimination open brackets (RO128 to RO64)
    
  • Every match is BO3
  
  
• Day 2 (May 24)
  • Second half of double-elimination open brackets (RO48 to RO16)
    
  • Playoff qualification matches are BO5, all other matches are BO3
  
  
• Day 3 (May 25)
  • Single-elimination playoffs (RO8 to grand finals)
    
  • Grand finals are BO7, all other matches are BO5.
    
  • Top four players earn seeds at Esports World Cup 2025

Players

The player list is subject to change before the tournament begins.

Tournament Preview: The World Championship Dress Rehearsal

Looking down the participant list, it's clear that DreamHack Dallas isn't just a stop on the way to the world championship—it's an insanely stacked event in and of itself.

Not only are all the top title contenders in participation, but the entire field is extremely deep with nearly the entirety of the Aligulac.com top 25 signed up to compete (with the exception of NightMare, MaxPax, and the military-bound Dark). Everyone with a chance at winning the world championship—and even those with just a fraction —will be attending DH Dallas.

At the top end, we have the three best players in the world right now—Serral, Clem, and herO. Alongside MaxPax (who refuses to pierce the online-offline veil), they were by far the best players of the off-season, vacuuming up nearly all the prize money to be won in the many small-to-mid-sized competitions held by the community.

The dynamics between the power trio are in constant flux, but just ahead of Dallas, they seem to have reached a state of tenuous balance. Serral has finally stabilized against Clem after taking consecutive beatings at EWC 2024 (0-8 total map score) and HomeStory Cup (2-6), and in 2025, he stands at 1-2 in series and 10-10 in maps against his rival. Clem and herO have clashed constantly throughout the off-season, and the overall match record decisively favors Clem at 31 to 21. However, their head-to-head stats since 2025 are closer to 50/50, with herO even taking a slight edge when you look at matches since April. As for herO versus Serral, the off-season record stands at a 1-1 tie, but Serral won the much more important one of the pair in the Master's Coliseum #8 Grand Finals. It's hard to say who has the edge between the three, but when in doubt, I've found that it's generally safe to bet on Serral's long run of consistent greatness.

Two players who must be regrettably excluded from the top contender category are Maru and Reynor. Both legends took some time off from StarCraft II during the off-season, gathering rust which resulted in them creaking out of Code S Season 1 in the RO8. Considering their tremendous career resumes, and how recently they were playing top-tier StarCraft II, I'm more than willing to extend them the benefit of the doubt. Given a bit of time to round back into form, it's quite likely that we'll see them jump right back into the title picture. However, as it's only been one week since they fell out of the GSL, it's probably too early to hope for greatly improved performances.

After the terrific three and dubious duo, there's a long list of what I might call 'tier 2' contenders. These are the players who are realistically shooting for a top four spot and an EWC ticket, but have the potential to go even further if they get a lucky bracket and/or play out their minds.

Obviously, the three GSL semifinalists aside from herO are the most noteworthy among this group, having recently proven their skills in a high-intensity, live tournament environment. Cure showed his strategic chops against herO in the Code S finals, pushing the heavy favorite all the way to a game seven with desperate all-ins. The DH: Dallas format does negate some of Cure's preparation skills, but he does seem to be in the best overall form amongst the fringe title contenders. A match against Serral is likely a death sentence, but I'd like to see if he could all-in his way to a victory against herO or Clem if given a chance (especially if it's in the BO3 rounds).

Classic may have had his momentum cut short by Cure in the GSL semis, but he was on a red hot streak in both online and offline competitions up to that point. Right now, it's clear that he's the second best Protoss after herO (minus MaxPax), playing patiently toward the late-game win conditions his faction currently seems to have in both PvT and PvZ. I could see Classic even giving Clem and Serral a bit of trouble, if they could somehow be goaded into playing orthodox macro games (I doubt they would, however).

Code S also saw GuMiho reassert his credentials as the most dangerous wildcard in StarCraft II. In the RO8, he mind-gamed Maru into playing as off-race Protoss and subsequently self-destructing, which he followed up with a mech-assisted 2-0 win over Reynor. GuMiho is generally not consistent enough to string these kinds of performances together over consecutive tournaments, but opponents will have to be wary of the unique threat he presents.

I'll quickly namecheck most of the Korean middle class, which includes ByuN, Solar, Creator, Zoun, SHIN, Rogue, and Bunny. None of these players have much of a chance against Clem-Serral-herO at their current power levels, but they're all capable of clinching an EWC seed given the right bracket draw. Rogue is theoretically the player with the most upward mobility of the bunch, but after a disappointing showing in GSL Code S, I fear he may not have enough time to rise to a higher level.

Alas, few players really stand out among the non-Korean crowd aside from Serral-Clem-Reynor as of now. For the most part, foreigners spent the off-season getting mauled by Clem-MaxPax-herO in online cups, and without EPT Regionals being held, it was hard to get a read on who was performing well within their scenes. So while I'm sure ShoWTimE and Spirit will be solid as always, I'd like to single out MaNa for a shoutout. The TL Protoss got inexplicably hot over the last four weeks, reaching the playoffs of PiG Festival #6 and taking huge upsets off of both MaxPax and Clem in the Monday weeklies. I'm certainly not going to project a top four finish off of that, but MaNa could have unexpected upset potential in the BO3 portion of the bracket.

As long as I'm just naming players who have intrigued me lately, let's finish off the preview with sOs. Yes, in case you haven't heard, the two-time BlizzCon champ recently broke his retirement, immediately qualified for Code S after a three year hiatus, and annoyed Reynor with some Tempest-rush strategies before being eliminated in the RO12. And now, he's coming to DreamHack Dallas.

Considering that even Rogue is struggling to recover his old form, I'm pretty skeptical about how this late-career money grab from sOs is going to work out (I say "money grab" in the most affectionate way possible). But it's definitely going to be the most interesting subplot of DreamHack Dallas, and there damn better be a community stream covering each and every one of his games.