The organizers of one of the most significant eSports tournaments, IEM Katowice, have announced the initial placement of teams in the tournament bracket. In total, sixteen eSports teams will take part in the competition and will fight to reach the finals in the double-elimination format.
The first stage of IEM Katowice will begin on February 16th. Eight matches will take place on the first day, spread across three slots: three matches will be played at noon, three more at 15:30 local time, and the remaining two – at 17:00. All of them will involve playing three cards. The second wave of qualifying matches will take place on February 17. Based on its results, eight teams will be in the quarterfinals.
Teams such as Spirit, Gambit, Liquid, NIP, fnatic and others will play in the opening matches. Interestingly, a few weeks before the start of the tournament, the composition of the teams changed: NIP, TeamOne and Wisla Krakow were invited as replacements for TYLOO, Chaos and Illuminar, who were unable to attend the tournament due to restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the fact that the mentioned teams took higher positions in the qualifications, however, due to the fact that the epidemic situation remains difficult, they had to be replaced by teams following them in the ranking.
