IEM Katowice 2024 Play-Ins Coming to a Close
The IEM Katowice 2024 Play-Ins are almost finished with only two spots left in contention to make it all the way to the main event.
The final two spots are up for grabs for four teams M80, Rebels, Apeks and BIG are all playing to try and make it to the main event.
The teams that have qualified so far are Heroic, GamerLegion, Spirit, Eternal Fire, Cloud9 and ENCE. ENCE and Heroic are two teams that have slowly clawed back up in the rankings after having their long-standing rosters gutted by their star players leaving for other organizations.
Multiple teams in the top 20 of the HLTV world rankings have failed to meet expectations with BetBoom, Virtus.pro, FURIA and Astralis all being eliminated from the competition.
Virtus.pro is ranked fourth in the world and were bested by both Cloud9 and GamerLegion while getting their only series win against the Australian organization Rooster.
BetBoom had the worst showing out of all the teams losing 13-1 against Eternal Fire and losing in a best of three series 2-1 against Cloud9 leaving the competition with only one map win in total.
FURIA may be ranked number 10 in the world, but their performances have been nothing short of mediocre besides a few games in the Elisa Masters Espoo back in December of 2023. For such an expensive roster with the contracts they have on the team, this should be a team contending for top three placements nearly every event they are in.
The elimination of both Rooster and The Mongolz means that there will be zero representation in the event from both the Asian and Oceania region. Eternal Fire, Falcons, Complexity and M80 (if they advance) will be the only teams representing regions outside of Europe. Eternal Fire and Falcons both representing the Middle East and Complexity and M80 representing the North American region.
The main event starts the day after the play-ins finish at 7:30 AM on Feb. 3.
Watch all the games on the ESL Twitch and YouTube channels.
