DreamHack Open 2014: Schedule, Live Stream and Bracket for StarCraft II Event

The best StarCraft II players from events in Bucharest, Romania; Jonkoping, Sweden (Summer); Valencia,  Spain; Moscow and Stockholm, Sweden have gathered to crown the Grand Final champion of the 2014 DreamHack Open. It has taken seven months to narrow the field down to 20 elite players set to battle for the winner’s share of the $75,000 prize.

The aforementioned cities hosted the preliminary tournaments that awarded the winners $10,000 apiece. The top-four finishers in each tournament clinched a spot in the Grand Final which is set to take place from Nov. 27-29. The event returns to Jonkoping for the Winter session where a champion will be crowned.

The Grand Final will be live streamed on DreamHack’s Twitch channel.

The prize the winners of the preliminary tournaments took home was nothing to sneeze at. However, the winner of the Winter session will triple their intake from Bucharest, Jonkoping (Summer), Valencia and Stockholm. Here’s how the prize money breaks down, per the event’s official website.

• First—$30,000
• Second—$15,000
• Third—$10,000
• Fourth—$6,000
• Fifth-Sixth—$4,000
• Seventh-Eighth—$3,000

About the Game

Critically acclaimed on Metacritic with an aggregate score of 93 percent,  StarCraft II—the sequel to the award-winning 1998 game StarCraft—is one of the most popular PC games ever.

It was developed by Blizzard Entertainment for the PC and Mac. It’s a real-time strategy game that focuses on three species: the Terrans, the Zerg and the Protoss.  Competitive gamers take control of one of the species and attempt to use the group's unique characteristics to spur them to victory.

StarCraft II is custom-made for gaming tournaments. It has arguably the best and most intuitive ranking system of any game within the genre. Its popularity in South Korea is especially high. Chris Gayomali of The Atlantic referred to it as the country’s national pastime.

All 10 of the top money earners in the game's history are South Korean.

The Favorites

Defending champion TaeJa aka Young Suh Yoon is back. So to is Life aka Seung Hyun Lee, his rival from last year’s final match. Per the official DreamHack Twitter account, these two will clash in an epic rematch within Group A.

Take a look at all of the group matchups scheduled as play begins on Thursday, per Shaun Clark of ESL. 

The field is truly stacked with the best StarCraft II players in the universe. Aside from defending champion TaeJa, who is the ninth on the game’s all-time earnings list with $260,148.74, there are five of the 10 highest StarCraft II earners set to compete.

Life is fourth with $337,649.61. The all-time top earner on the game will also be present. MC aka Min Chul Jang has raked in $490,692.71 playing StarCraft II in his career. That’s the 11th-highest total of any ESports athlete in history. He may just be the best Protoss player ever, but he hasn't bee especially strong of late.

The 23-year-old (24 in Korean) was seemingly in his gaming prime from 2010-2012 when he averaged $118,988.49 per year in earnings. He made $67,460.50 in 2013 and thus far in 2014 he has pulled in $66,266.67. Winning the $30,000 would put MC right near the $100,000 mark for the third time in his illustrious career. 

Who will become the next champion? You'll have to watch from Thursday to Saturday to find out.

All earnings information per ESportsEarnings.com

Follow Brian Mazique aka FranchisePlay, the Sports Video Game Journalist