In their path to the winners' finals, Adam "Armada" Lindgren defeated William "Leffen" Hjelte while Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma defeated Joseph "Mango" Marquez. It only seemed appropriate that the two finalists from last year's DreamHack Winter would meet again. More importantly, they were both vying to become the unofficial best player of the year and every tournament has become an important measure as 2016 comes to a close.
In the winners' finals, the first two games were close, but Armada narrowly squeaked by in both games to take a 2-0 advantage. Hungrybox started slow with missed punishes, but showed signs of life in Game 3, where he finally landed some crucial rests on Armada's Fox to win the game. In Game 4, Armada stuck to Final Destination, a strong counter-pick in the Fox vs. Jigglypuff matchup. Despite Fox's nerfs in the PAL version of the game, Armada played the matchup so fundamentally solid and sent Hungrybox to losers'.
After losing to Hungrybox, Mango defeated Justin "Wizzrobe" Hallett, but struggled against Leffen in losers' semis. Mango looked to take the first game, but Leffen recovered with an intricate firefox angle that avoided Mango's suicide down-air to win Game 1. Leffen ran away with the rest of the set to a quick 3-0 victory as Mango finished in fourth place.
In losers' finals, Leffen and Hungrybox fought in an exciting five-game set. Hungrybox won the crucial Game 1 to take the counter-pick advantage. They both traded the next three games on their respective counter-picks to tie the set at two games a piece. In the final game, Hungrybox took the early lead and picked on Leffen's movement with crucial reads to win the set and get a second chance against Armada in grand finals.
Armada struck first in the grand finals set with a win on Battlefield. Now a game behind, Hungrybox needed to win to keep the set close in counter-picks. He fell behind, but found a crucial jab-reset into rest to win the game. Hungrybox found success in Game 3 on Final Destination, but missed a crucial game-ending rest to seal it. Instead, Armada won and was now on champion point to win DreamHack: Winter.
In Game 4, Hungrybox mixed up the pacing of the match to little success as Armada controlled the center stage. Game 4 went to last stock, but there was no miracle comeback from Hungrybox; Armada sealed the set to win DreamHack Winter 2016 and the $15,000 first place prize in front of his hometown.
After the win, Armada said, "I was disappointed last year after losing DreamHack Winter, and I really want to win a major here in Sweden. It's not often that Mango and Hungrybox level players come to Sweden and I am happy to win it in front of everyone this time."