IEM Katowice 2021 Play-In: Team Spirit upset BIG, OG or Cloud9 to be eliminated

The IEM Katowice 2021 Play-In Stage is halfway and we’ve already seen quite a few upset victories, with both Team Spirit and Gambit Esports leading the charge.

One of the most interesting teams to watch right now has got to be Team Spirit. After easily moving past Cloud9 in the first round of the play-in, they now also defeated BIG in an exciting 2-0 victory, qualifying for the group stage. Gambit Esports pulled off a similar feat. After beating Team One convincingly they went on to move past Mousesports with 2-1, falling on Dust II but gaining the upper hand on Inferno and Vertigo.

THEY HAVE DONE IT! @Team__Spirit have defeated @BIGCLANgg 2-0 to secure their spot in #IEM Katowice 2021 🙌 pic.twitter.com/BwsMk2wk4T

— Intel®ExtremeMasters (@IEM) February 16, 2021

In the other play-in matches it was Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Liquid who took away two more of the qualification spots. Ninjas in Pyjamas took care of Complexity and Virtus.Pro in very convincing fashion and look like the team to beat right now, reaffirming their form. Team Liquid took care of MIBR and faced OG. After one-sided matches on Mirage and Overpass, a contested match on Nuke eventually went the way of Liquid.

Also read: The Rise and Fall of the 6-Man-Roster in CS:GO

There’s still more matches to play, with OG facing Cloud9 as one of the teams will be sent home. Further down we also see mousesports potentially facing Complexity, while BIG will have to deal with either Fnatic or MIBR. Matches resume later today, starting at 12:00 CET.

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