IEM Katowice 2023, one of the biggest CS:GO tournaments of 2023, will take place in Poland on February 1-12. The top 24 teams of the world will compete for the million dollar prize pool, and the first place winner will be determined on the Spodek Arena stage, which will be attended by thousands of esports fans.
Viewership statistics of the tournament will be available here
A true "battle test" for the renewed Outsiders, Cloud9 and Ninjas in Pyjamas lineups will be the main intrigue of IEM Katowice 2023. Outsiders, the reigning Major champions, substituted n0rb3r7 for KaiR0N from Aurora Gaming. As for Cloud9, the team benched interz, and his place was taken by buster from Outsiders (Virtus.pro). When it comes to NIP, the Swedish club had to make an emergency substitution back at BLAST Premier Spring 2023: hampus missed the tournament because of health problems, and maxster from Young Ninjas Academy played there instead. And at the upcoming event Danish player k0nfig, who used to play for Astralis, will represent NIP.
Tournament Format
IEM Katowice 2023 will start with the Play-In stage, featuring 16 teams selected on the basis of ESL World Ranking and qualifying tournaments such as Elisa Masters Espoo 2022 and Mistrzostwa Polski. After a few rounds in the double-elimination bracket, eight teams will continue to compete and join eight other teams in the Group Stage.
Group Stage consists of two double-elimination brackets with 8 teams in each. The top three teams from each bracket will qualify for the Playoffs (this stage will take place at Spodek Arena). The winners of each bracket will go straight to the Semifinals.
Opening Play-In Matches:
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FURIA Esports vs Permitta Esports;
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BIG vs Complexity Gaming;
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Fnatic vs Evil Geniuses;
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Sprout vs OG;
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Team Spirit vs Grayhound;
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MIBR vs Ninjas in Pyjamas;
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ENCE vs paiN Gaming;
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Cloud9 vs IHC Esports.
Group Stage Participants:
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Group A: Team Liquid, Natus Vincere, G2 Esports, FaZe Clan + 4 teams from Play-In.
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Group B: Heroic, MOUZ, Team Vitality, Outsider + 4 teams from Play-In.
IEM Katowice 2023 will be broadcast in English by ESL. The tournament will also be covered in Russian, Portuguese, Polish, French and other languages. The exact number will be known at the start of the tournament. For example, we counted 19 different languages available at IEM Katowice 2022. Streams will be held both on Twitch and YouTube.
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Poland has long been considered one of the capitals of the professional CS:GO scene. It was the place where three of the ten most popular tournaments in the history of the discipline were played — IEM Katowice in 2019, 2020 and 2022.
IEM Katowice 2022 saw over 1.12 million Peak Viewers. Then, on the main stage of Spodek Arena, FaZe Clan players defeated G2 Esports 3-0. Now FaZe Clan is the main contender to win Intel Grand Slam Season 4 — the karrigan's team already has three titles and four more attempts to win the remaining one.
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