The organizers of the LAN event IEM Cologne 2023, which starts at the end of July, have announced a list of 19 invited teams who have secured spots in the Play-In stage and the group stage.
The list of invitations was based on the ESL rankings as of June 12. Four teams, namely G2, FaZe Clan, ENCE, and Vitality, were directly invited to the group stage as winners of major ESL tournaments. Vitality, in turn, qualified for the championship as champions of two events - BLAST.tv Paris Major and IEM Rio 2023. BIG Academy earned their place in the Play-In stage by securing first place in ESL Meisterschaft: Spring 2023, which granted them the only national quota for IEM Cologne.
List of participating teams at IEM Cologne 2023
Group stage
- G2
- FaZe
- ENCE
- Vitality
- Heroic
- Cloud9
- NAVI
- GamerLegion
Play-In
- MOUZ
- Apeks
- 9INE
- FURIA
- Liquid
- Imperial
- TheMongolz
- Grayhound
- BIG Academy
- Fnatic
- PaiN
- Monte
- NIP
- FORZE
- Astralis
- Into The Breach
The championship will have three stages: Play-In, Group Stage and Playoffs. From the Play-In, eight of the 16 teams will qualify for the next stage. This part of the event will be held in Double-Elimination format, where the opening matches will be held in bo1, and the rest - in bo3. A similar group stage will be held in a similar format, here out of 16 teams divided into two groups in the playoffs will be six, the winners of each group will proceed directly to the semifinals and the rest - to the quarterfinals. The Grand Final is the first in a long time to be played to three victories (bo5). The last championship at this level with a bo5-final was EPL season 17.
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