Tournament organizer ESL has confirmed that IEM Cologne 2021 will be held in LAN format. Thus, since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, this will be the first major competition where players will be able to meet in person. Since March 2020, almost all significant tournaments have been held online to ensure the safety of players. The last major event in the LAN format was the last IEM Katowice. Since then, plans to hold an offline tournament have appeared several times, but they could not be implemented due to new waves of morbidity.
At the same time, there will be no spectators at IEM Cologne – The competition will take place in a studio environment. The first tournament where spectators will be able to attend should be IEM Winter, scheduled for the first half of December. One of the leaders of ESL, Michal "Carmac" Bliharz noted that the organization is in constant contact with the community and will provide more detailed information on how the competition will take place in the coming days.
IEM Cologne 2021 will take place on the 6th – July 18. The tournament will feature 24 of the best teams from around the world, and the prize fund will be $1 million. It will begin with a two-day qualifying stage in which 16 teams will take part. The top eight will advance to the main stage, where they will meet the top eight ESL Pro Tour (Road to Cologne) rankings.
