After the completion of the play-in stage, the final composition of participants in IEM Cologne was determined. The latest to join the list are mousesports and Spirit, who won their qualifying matches on Wednesday. Thus, sixteen teams will take part in the tournament, which will compete for a total prize fund of $1 million.
The tournament will be attended by 14 of the 15 teams occupying the highest positions in the world rankings: among the leaders, only OG, who was recently defeated by Renegades, will miss it. Among those who received direct invitations – Gambit, Natus Vincere and G2, while NIP, BIG, Complexity and Vitality entered the tournament through the qualifying stage. The biggest surprise was the inclusion of the Rengades team, which was considered an outsider, since it occupied fiftieth place in the overall ranking. In her first match she will play against NAVI.
At the play-in stage, teams played matches until the first victory, but the group stage of the main part of IEM Cologne will be held in the “best of 3” format. It already started on Thursday with Gambit matches – mousesports and Liquid – NIP. The top three teams in each group will advance to the playoffs. In this case, the leaders of each group will go straight to the semi-finals, while the rest will fight for the right to advance further in additional matches.
