Looking ahead to the IEM Katowice 2021 Group Stage

The Play-In stage of IEM Katowice 2021 has concluded, so now we can take a first look at some of the most interesting Group Stage matches.

Play-In upsets

Early on in the tournament, we already saw some upsets in the Play-In stage. Team Spirit proved they’re here to contend with the best out there, defeating both Cloud9 and BIG without too many issues. Gambit Esports would also qualify for group stage following big wins over Renegades and the revamped mousesports roster.

Unfortunately, with the #IEM Katowice play-in stage concluded we have to say goodbye to one more team.@Complexity have been looking rejuvenated after being reunited with @poizonCSGO and we know it’s only a matter of time before they’re back on top!

GGs! ❤️️ pic.twitter.com/h4fvCXGAG2

— Intel®ExtremeMasters (@IEM) February 17, 2021

Some of the bigger names have left the tournament already, as Fnatic wasn’t able to have the impact they wanted. Cloud9 also showed another lacklustre performance, losing out to OG for a spot in groups. Finally, revelation CompLexity wasn’t able to make it out of the Play-In, eventually falling to mousesports after a big overtime loss leading into a mousesports-dominated Nuke map.

Balanced groups?

The group stage features quite a lot of interesting matches early on the double-elimination format. The eight qualifying teams were divided up into groups consisting of eight more teams who received direct qualification for IEM Katowice 2021. The one team might just be a little more stacked than the other, however.

Tomorrow’s groupstage matchups are looking pretty 🌶 #IEM pic.twitter.com/n2uttb5bZa

— Intel®ExtremeMasters (@IEM) February 17, 2021

Most people especially look at group B as “the group of death”, featuring a lot of top tier teams looking to score big. These teams are Vitality, OG, Liquid, FaZe, FURIA, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Virtus.Pro and Natus Vincere. On the other hand, group A consists of Astralis, mousesports, Gambit Esports, Evil Geniuses, G2 Esports, Team Spirit, BIG and Heroic.

Matches to look forward to

There are already some matches which are worth highlighting, even this early on in the tournament. One of the biggest ones is obviously the match between Team Liquid and FaZe. The latter recently acquired former Liquid player Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, who has since regained his best form. In both of their previous meetings in BLAST Premier Spring 2021, FaZe outright dominated Liquid in both round 1 of the upper bracket and the lower bracket final. FaZe especially showed how good they were at Nuke, defeating Liquid 16-1 at one point.

I’m gonna watch some CS:GO today, what about you? #IEMKatowice

— Astralis Counter-Strike (@AstralisCS) February 18, 2021

If we look over to group A, we see two other pop up immediately, being mousesports and Astralis. Historically, mousesports has always been a team that made life difficult for Astralis, but it’ll be interesting to see how they’ll fare with new IGL Christopher “dexter” Nong and Frederik “acoR” Gyldstrand within the team. Things already looked rough for mousesports in the play-in stage but then again, Astralis hasn’t hit its best form for quite a while, which mousesports could possibly take advantage of.

Finally it might also be worth looking at G2 Esports versus Team Spirit. The latter shone brightly throughout the play-in stage and looks to join the upper ranks of the CS:GO scene. G2 Esports on the other hand has had their issues recently, being relatively inconsistent. They’ll be looking at this match as a way to prove they are still up there with the best of them.

Group Stage of IEM Katowice 2021 will start at 12:00 CET with the match between Gambit Esports and Evil Geniuses and G2 Esports versus Team Spririt. 

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Image Credit: ESL (Twitter)