Team Spirit and GamerLegion advanced to the group stage of Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2024 by picking up wins on Thursday in Poland.
Spirit swept The MongolZ 2-0 and GamerLegion got past Virtus.pro 2-1 in the second round of the play-in stage, dropping the losing sides from the upper bracket into the lower bracket.
Meanwhile, four teams were shown the early door thanks to losses in the lower bracket: BetBoom Team, Astralis, FURIA Esports and Rooster.
Twenty-four teams are competing for a share of the $1 million prize pool, the first $1 million prize pool in Europe since Counter-Strike 2 launched in September. Sixteen teams are competing in the double-elimination play-in stage, and six more will join Heroic and Eternal in the group stage.
On Thursday, Team Spirit routed The MongolZ 13-2 on Mirage before winning a 16-14 overtime result on Ancient. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets had 47 kills on a plus-14 kills-to-deaths differential, and fellow Russian Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov added 38 kills on a plus-16 for Spirit.
GamerLegion opened their match with a 13-3 runaway win on Vertigo, but Virtus.pro answered with a 13-5 triumph on Inferno. The final map was Overpass, where GamerLegion prevailed 13-9. Belgium’s Nicolas “Keoz” Dgus led a balanced attack for GamerLegion (39 kills, plus-5) while three other players had at least 32 kills.
In Round 1 of the lower bracket, Cloud9 rallied past BetBoom Team 2-1, overcoming BetBoom’s marathon 25-22 overtime win on Overpass by winning on 13-6 Anubis and 13-7 on Ancient.
Apeks beat FURIA 2-1, sandwiching a 13-9 result on Inferno and a 13-11 win on Ancient around a 13-10 setback on Mirage. ENCE swept Astralis 2-0 (13-10 on Vertigo, 13-4 on Ancient) and M80 beat Rooster 2-0 (13-3 on Inferno, 13-7 on Vertigo).
The play-in stage concludes Friday with four do-or-die Round 2 matches in the lower bracket:
–Virtus.pro vs. Cloud9
–The MongolZ vs. ENCE
–BIG vs. Apeks
–Rebels Gaming vs. M80
PRIZE POOL
1. $400,000, 3,000 BLAST Premier points (Qualifies to IEM Cologne 2024, BLAST Premier World Final)
2. $180,000, 2,000 BLAST Premier points
3-4. $80,000, 1,200 BLAST Premier points
5-6. $40,000, 500 BLAST Premier points
7-8. $24,000, 300 BLAST Premier points
9-12. $16,000
13-16. $10,000
17-20. $4,500
21-24. $2,500 — BetBoom Team, Astralis, FURIA Esports, Rooster
The event will be broadcast live on the ESL Counter-Strike Twitch and YouTube channels, with all matches also available on-demand on YouTube.
IEM Katowice will also include a $500,000 standalone Starcraft II competition, with $150,000 going to the winners. The 24-team event will again feature the IEM Expo from Feb. 8-11.
–Field Level Media
