The play-in stage of IEM Katowice has finally drawn to a close and the main event is only hours away. We take a look at how things played out in our recap of the event.

The Rise of CIS

The story of the event so far has been the rise of the CIS teams, with Spirit, Gambit and Virtus.pro all making it through. The trio will join Natus Vincere, who have already qualified through the ‘Road to Katowice’ rankings - giving us a total of four CIS teams at the main event.

fnatic eliminated

fnatic won’t be at the main event after getting knocked out by MIBR in what was a big upset in the loser-bracket. The Swedes are in many ways the kings of Katowice, having won the event in 2015, 2016 and 2018, respectively. Unfortunately, KRIMZ & co will have to watch this one from the sidelines.

NiP’s brilliant run

While fnatic crumbled, their Swedish rivals NiP had a far better tournament, beating out both Complexity and Virtus.pro in what was a very impressive performance. The Ninjas have been high on confidence after the addition of ztr, and they will be one to watch as they take on FURIA in the first round of the tournament. FURIA will play their first ever official match with junior, who has been sidelined due to travel complications after joining the team in January.

dexter’s mousesports qualify

Australian fans will be happy to see that dexter’s mousesports will be at the main event after edging out Complexity to claim one of the last spots.

Unfortunately, dexter qualified at the expense of his former teammates in Renegades, who fell to mousesports in the opener and were later eliminated. A bittersweet outcome perhaps, but at least there will be one fellow Aussie at the main event.

The groups and opening matches for the IEM Katowice main event are as follows

Group A

• Astralis
• Evil Geniuses
• G2
• Heroic
• Gambit
• Spirit
• BIG
• mousesports

Group B

• Vitality
• FaZe
• FURIA
• Natus Vincere
• OG
• Liquid
• NiP
• Virtus.pro

Thursday, February 18th

• Evil Geniuses vs. Gambit
• G2 vs. Spirit
• Astralis vs. mousesports
• Heroic vs. BIG
• Vitality vs. OG
• FaZe vs. Liquid

Friday, February 19th

• FURIA vs. NIP
• Natus Vincere vs. Virtus.pro

The teams will fight it out for a spot in the playoffs, which is set to start on February 26th. It is important to note that the group winners will get the advantage of starting in the semi-finals, whereas the remainder of the teams will start their playoff journey in the quarter-finals.

As always, there will be odds up for the games here at PickleBet.