Biggest Storylines of IEM Cologne 2023 So Far
via Twitter/ @ESLCS
IEM Cologne 2023 has been going on for over a week now and is on a two-day break until we start the quarter-finals in front of a live audience in Cologne. Here are the biggest stories from the event so far.
The teams that made it past the group stage are Vitality, Cloud9, ENCE, G2, Astralis and Heroic.
Natus Vincere (NAVI) knocked out FaZe Clan before losing a close best of three against Astralis who would knock them out of the tournament.
In the play-in, many teams were knocked out of the event early on like Apeks, FURIA, Team Liquid, Imperial and Into the Breach.
Into the Breach specifically had an awful showing after losing CYPHER and VOLT in the offseason and the organization had to quickly add two new players in NEOFRAG and Bymas to the roster. The team looked very sloppy, and it was evident that they had not had a lot of practice with their new roster before the event.
The MongolZ a team hailing from Mongolia were the surprise performers of the event in the Group Stage. Coming from the Asian region who has seen little success in professional Counter-Strike they were able to perform above everyone’s expectations. The best match of the entire group stage was their matchup against Heroic where they nearly 2-0’d the Danish team currently ranked number one in the world.
They would unfortunately be eliminated by GamerLegion in the lower bracket ending their cinderella story much earlier than viewers were hoping for.
G2 seem to finally have found their rhythm after disappointing performances at the last three events they’ve attended. They haven’t lost a single match in the tournament so far and have taken down some of the best teams in the tournament including Astralis and Vitality who are both in the semi-finals as well.
The release date of Counter-Strike 2 is not confirmed at this point in time possibly making IEM Cologne the final large-scale tournament that will be played on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Gamers8 and ESL Pro League Season 18 both take place in the coming weeks and will most likely be played on Global Offensive. However, with how Valve is with their releases of games we could see Counter-Strike 2 being released in the next few weeks which would make those tournaments even more exciting to watch.
IEM Cologne resumes play on Friday with Heroic versus Astralis and Vitality versus Cloud9 with Vitality and Cloud9 playing first at 9:30 A.M. EST.
