The two highest-ranked teams in the world, G2 and HEROIC, will start in the semi-finals from opposite sides of the bracket.
With the group stage of IEM Katowice drawing to a close, the six-team playoff bracket that will play out in front of a packed audience in the Spodek Arena has been announced.
HEROIC and G2 won their groups and will therefore begin their on-stage run in the semi-finals on Saturday, where they will meet the winners of the two quarter-final matchups.
In the first quarter-final matchup, Vitality are set to clash with Liquid, who eliminated FaZe in the lower bracket final of the "group of death" and denied them a chance to claim the Intel Grand Slam title. Vitality had a slightly easier group and qualified for the playoffs with wins over Ninjas in Pyjamas and fnatic, but were trounced by HEROIC in their final group stage match.
The second quarter-final will see Natus Vincere taking on IEM Rio Major champions Outsiders. The majority-Ukrainian side showed much-improved performances at the Polish event after their lackluster start to the year at BLAST Groups. They took down Cloud9 and Liquid without losing a map to secure the playoff berth, but were no match for the in-form G2 side in the upper-bracket final.
On the other hand, Outsiders had a much more labored road to the playoffs as they began their tournament with a loss against fnatic, and thus dropped down to the lower bracket. They fought through Ninjas in Pyjamas and OG before winning a marathon three-map series against Complexity, which qualified them for the Spodek Arena in their debut event with Aleksandr "KaiR0N-" Anashkin.
The schedule for the playoffs of IEM Katowice looks as follows:
Date | Matches | |
---|---|---|
IEM Katowice 2023 | ||
10/02/2023 | Natus Vincere![]() | Match |
10/02/2023 | Liquid![]() | Match |
11/02/2023 | HEROIC | Match |
11/02/2023 | G2![]() | Match |
12/02/2023 | HEROIC![]() | Match |