IEM Katowice 2024 coverage powered by Predator Gaming
A supercomputer has predicted Faze Clan will lift the trophy at IEM Katowice 2024, with the algorithm hedging its bets for the group stage, play-offs and grand final.
Tournament favourites Team Vitality were not touted to make the final by the number cruncher, with perfect play-in performers Heroic also not advancing from the group stage.
The algorithm predicted the entire tournament from the group stage onwards, and has given an emotionless and fully objective perspective on how IEM Katowice could unfold.
Our IEM Katowice 2024 supercomputer explained
The supercomputer used human-entered data from a wealth of categories to create a mean average score out of 10 for each team competing at IEM Katowice 2024, including teams in the play-in which did not make it through to the final.
This criteria included statistics pulled from the teams’ last 20 HLTV recognised games, looking at their world ranking, win ratio, average player K/D ratio, recent events won, win percentage against top 10 ranked teams and average player ADR.
Any matches that included a team facing a top 10 ranked team had an additional 10% applied to each criteria. Statistics were converted to a number out of 100, and then an overall average score for each team.
Once this score was produced, the algorithm then weighted these scores against two team’s recent head-to-head results in order to understand how previous matches had played out. For example, if the fixture was Faze versus Falcons, and Faze had won the last four of the last five games they had played, then Faze would be given 80% of the bonus points allocated during the weighting process.
The supercomputer then churned out a number of rounds each team would win in the desired game, with the team with higher rounds won being selected as the winner. For the best of three fixtures, this process was repeated two or three times.
Data was input and cut-off before the play-ins began (Wednesday January 30th), so teams that did not qualify for the group stage had their entries removed.
Navi and Vitality on top? Supercomputer predicts the IEM Katowice 2024 Group Stage
With the play-in complete, Group A was finalised with Faze Clan, Rebels, Falcons, Eternal Fire, Natus Vincere, Spirit, Complexity and Apeks all set to feature.
The supercomputer was not nice to local heroes Rebels – who are ranked 114th in the world according to HLTV – and the algorithm predicted that the Polish side would win an average of two rounds per game.
It did however favour Natus Vincere, who currently sit fifth in the world based off of ESL’s world ranking system.
It would be no easy feat according to the algorithm, as Navi would have to see off Faze Clan in the upper bracket final if the supercomputer’s predictions came true.
It punted on Navi to finish in first, but did in fact send both teams to the play-offs.
The supercomputer then almost went against the grain as North America’s finest Complexity looked like they would win the lower bracket, but dark horses Team Falcon beat them in the final to make it through to the Spodek crowd.
The supercomputer then ran through the Group B bracket, which features Vitality, Ence, G2, Heroic, Monte, GamerLegion, Mouz and Cloud 9.
Vitality were predicted to triumph in first place in a punt that surprises nobody, with Ukrainian hopefuls Monte behind them in second place.
The algorithm gave no last dance to Janusz ‘snax’ Pogorzelski, who was robbed from playing in front of a home crowd at the Spodek Arena, as the supercomputer predicted IEM Cologne 2023 champions G2 Esports to win the lower bracket final.
It brushed aside Mouz – ranked fifth in the world – and shockingly did not predict them to make the play-offs.
There was also no space for Heroic who only dropped one map when advancing through the play-in.
Group A:
1st – Natus Vincere
2nd – FaZe Clan
3rd – Team Falcons
Group B:
1st – Team Vitality
2nd – Monte
3rd – G2 Esports
Supercomputer predicts strong IEM Katowice 2024 Quarter Finals for Faze
For the quarter finals, second place in Group B will meet third place in Group A and vice versa.
On the top of the bracket, the supercomputer matched second place Monte versus third place Falcons.
It would be the first time that Monte faced up against the new look Falcons, who now boast the experience of Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif and firepower of Alvaro ‘SunPayus’ Garcia, both of which were added to the roster in December.
But the algorithm does not believe that those changes will be enough to topple ESL’s world number sixes, predicting that Monte would not give up a map in a dominant quarter final win.
One thing that the supercomputer cannot process is personal vendetta, and that would certainly fire up Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač as his current team G2 Esports faced his old side FaZe.
These two teams locked horns three times at IEM events in 2023 – at Cologne, Dallas and Katowice itself – and most recently did battle at the Blast Premier World Final in December 2023 (which was won by Vitality).
Faze beat G2 2-1 there to secure a space in the semi-final, and the algorithm has taken into account recent results to churn out another win for Faze.
The supercomputer expects a close match, but for Faze to ride out the storm and win within two maps.
Supercomputer predicts Vitality’s elimination in the IEM Katowice 2024 Semi FInals
Monte would then advance to face the team who topped Group A, the European side Natus Vincere.
Na’Vi breezed through the Blast Premier Spring Groups and the PGL Copenhagen RMR Closed Qualifiers, which convinced the algorithm that they come into the event riding a tidal wave of momentum.
These two teams have not faced since September 2023 when a Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev-inspired Na’Vi managed to win across two competitive maps.
Both line-ups may have been slightly tweaked since then, but the supercomputer expects a repeat of the last scoreline, and it thinks that Navi will beat Monte 2-0.
Tournament favourites Vitality await Faze in the other semi final, and the algorithm predicts that we will have a rematch of the Blast Premier Fall and World grand finals here.
With Vitality topping HLTV’s world ranking and winning back-to-back trophies since signing UK rifler William ‘mezii’ Merryman, the supercomputer threw a curveball here and instead thinks that Faze will take the win 2-1.
Faze managed to pull off a similar result in the group stage of IEM Sydney 2023, but other than that, they have won just one of their last seven matches against Vitality.
The supercomputer instead predicts that Faze will be the first team to stop Mezii-made dominance and eliminate Vitality from the tournament.
Supercomputer predicts the IEM Katowice 2024 Grand Final
A repeat of IEM Cologne 2022’s grand final was cooked up by the supercomputer, as it predicted Natus Vincere and Faze to be the last two standing.
They last played in October 2023 at IEM Sydney, where coach Andrey ‘B1ad3’ Gorodenskiy stood in for a departing ‘s1mple’ as Na’Vi were dumped out of the tournament.
Faze would go on to lift the trophy in Sydney, sealing their space at Katowice in the process, and the supercomputer thinks it will be back-to-back IEM trophies for Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen’s side.
The best-of-five final would not go to a fifth map if the algorithm had its way, with Faze wrapping it up 3-1 to secure $400,000, a place at IEM Cologne 2024 and a spot at the Blast Premier World Final later on that year.
Featured image used for illustrative purposes only – credit to Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Reece is a sports journalist who has previously worked with the likes of BBC Radio Solent, Southern Daily Echo, Salisbury Radio, VAVEL and many more. He is currently studying a degree in Sports Journalism at Solent University.
