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Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice 2025 gets underway on January 29th, with 24 teams vying for the glory of lifting the trophy in the famous Spodek Arena.
As the world of Counter-Strike turns its attention to the event, Esports News UK has all the info you need to help you keep track of the action at one of Counter-Strike’s most storied events.
IEM Katowice 2025 teams, format and schedule
ESL announced the invite list for the event on January 9th, bringing together Counter-Strike’s top 24 Valve-ranked teams.
You can see the full list of IEM Katowice 2025 teams and the stage 1 bracket match-ups here.
The lower-ranked 16 invited teams will compete in the play-in tournament in Katowice’s Hall of Heroes LAN environment from January 29th to 31st.
Eight of the 16 teams will qualify for the group stage (running from February 1st to 4th) if they can fight through the double-elimination play-in bracket.
Play-in teams include a Guy ‘NertZ’ Iluz bolstered Liquid and GamerLegion, led by British coach Ashley ‘ash’ Battye.
The top eight-ranked teams based on VRS (Valve Regional Standings) bypass the first stage, allowing them to proceed directly to the group stage of the main event. Fans wishing to see the likes of G2 or FaZe will have to wait until the group stage to see their revamped rosters competing for one of esports’ most prestigious trophies.
Teams will qualify from the group stage to a six-team playoff bracket to be played from February 7th to 9th in the Spodek Arena.
The rosters attending will look largely familiar to those following Blast’s season-opening Bounty event. Cut down to the top 24 ranked teams, IEM Katowice’s invite pool was largely similar to the first 24 invited to Blast Bounty, with the notable exception of Nemiga who – unfortunately for them – fell out of the top 24 in between the invite dates of Blast and Katowice.
IEM Katowice will also see the season debut on The Mongolz, who chose to skip Blast to prioritise player welfare. With Valve’s tournament regulations taking effect at the start of 2025, the number of tier one events has vastly increased with various tournament organisers (TOs) re-entering the scene in hopes of claiming a piece of the Counter-Strike pie.
How are the invited teams looking ahead of Katowice? – Group Stage Preview
Spirit made no roster changes in the off-season, which is no surprise considering their Shanghai major victory. Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets showed no signs of dipping in form at BLAST Bounty, achieving a ridiculous 2.30 HLTV-rated performance in a 2-0 victory against FlyQuest. Can anyone stop the donk?
Despite winning Cologne in 2024, Vitality’s year was characterised by consistent playoff berths only to spontaneously form when it mattered most. Now with ropz, it is hard to find fault in Vitality’s star-studded line-up. Can Britain’s William mezii Merriman add Katowice to his IEM Cologne 2024 victory?
G2 were deprived of the legendary rifler Nikola ‘NiKo‘ Kovač as he moved to Falcons. Still, the roster still contains ungodly levels of firepower, retaining young talents Ilya Osipov (19) and Mario Samayoa (22). The pair come into 2025 joining forces with former Endpoint player Nikita ‘HeavyGod’ Martynenko. Don’t be surprised in G2 go all the way.
NaVi go into 2025 having recently been named the Team of the Year at the 2025 HLTV Awards. While they don’t necessarily have a player who can match the fragging ability of donk or Zywoo, the NaVi Braintrust of IGL Aleksi ‘aleksib’ Virolainen and Andrey ‘b1ad3’ Gorodenskiy made NaVi the year-defining roster in 2024. If they win Katowice, they will be only one step away from claiming the Intel Grand Slam.
Mouz kept hold of their roster going into 2025, which in itself was a huge surprise. Rumours swirled about the roster for the majority of the latter half of the year. Blast was a poor event from the young roster who need to show a good face at Katowice to convince fans that they can reach the heights their potential indicates.
Update: Mouz have announced the sudden benching of their IGL Kamil ‘siuhy‘ Szkaradek, with Ludvig ‘Brollan’ Brolin taking over the IGLing duties. Mouz have enlisted Lotan ‘Spinx‘ Giladi (formerly of Vitality) to fill the gap. Certainly, the Israeli star is a firepower upgrade for the international roster, but can they reach the same heights without their young Polish leader?
FaZe may have lost ropz, but they have gained a very hungry and motivated Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski in the process. While Complexity languished for large parts of 2024, EliGE had one of his best years individually which is saying something for the highly accomplished Grand Slam winner.
Falcons faced a disappointing exit at Blast after their 2-0 series defeat by Eternal Fire. NiKo’s new team, built around the former Heroic roster, have a lot of problem-solving to do if NiKo wants to lift the Katowice trophy for his second time.
The Mongolz make their Katowice debut. The Mongolian roster were praised as “the best Asian team ever of the modern era” by the Geographically Challenged podcast, following the Shanghai Major, owing to their playoff appearance, combined with their consistently competitive level. Can they reach the playoffs at yet another elite event?
IEM Katowice 2025 play-in teams: Roster changes and form
British eyes will be on GamerLegion in the play-ins. The roster, led by British coach Ashley ‘ash’ Battye were deprived of aggro-rifler Timur ‘FL4MUS’ Marev, they also chose to bench British-Romanian Sebastian ‘volt’ Maloș.
GamerLegion have replaced those players with 17-year-old Mouz Nxt prospect Oldřich ‘PR’ Nový as well as NiP long-term veteran Fredrik ‘REZ’ Sterner. Despite the loss of FL4MUS, many are backing ash to lead this new configuration to the major again.
Team Liquid go into the play-ins are the highest ranked team at that stage. The roster removed the long-suffering Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis in favour of Guy ‘NertZ’ Iluz in a move that was well-received by Liquid’s fans. The only issue is that they start their tournament run against a Heroic that defeated them in the season-opening Blast Bounty.
Having lost EliGE, Complexity have doubled down on their mission statement in signing American talents Danny ‘cxzi’ Strzelczyk and Nick ‘nicx’ Lee. If they are to compensate for the loss of EliGE, it will have to be through effort and co-ordination as it is impossible for Col to replace his skill with another American player in 2025.
Like Col, BIG have stuck to their principles in signing (and re-signing) Can ‘kyuubi’ Ali and Marcel ‘hyped’ Köhn. BIG experimented with breaking out of their mold in 2024 by signing Swiss-Kosovar, Rigon “rigoN” Gashi, but the player’s proactive style never meshed with the measured German core. If BLAST is anything to go by, they appear to have found a bit more congruity again.
Furia, mibr, 3DMAX, Wildcard, and Imperial fe go into the event with unchanged rosters from last season. They’ll hope their roster stability will help them against competitors who are still developing their protocols and teamwork.
Astralis have not technically made a roster change, but benefit from the return of legendary Danish AWPer, Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz. The superstar missed the Shanghai major due to illness, but showed strong individual form at BLAST.
Heroic are on the entire other end of the spectrum, having replaced their entire team who were largely sold to Falcons. Heroic built their new roster based on the Sangal core that grinded their way up from tier-2 to top 20 in 2024.
Eternal Fire had already bagged their man in signing Samet ‘jottAAA’ Köklü prior to Heroic buying out the roster. The player was a standout player for Sangal in 2024, replacing a middling Buğra ‘Calyx’ Arkın. The Turkish roster have upset potential in spades.
Virtus Pro is a legendary name in the Spodek, but the current roster are the antithesis of the legendary ‘Polish plough’. VP’s classic lineup remained unchanged over half a decade.
By contrast, Virtus Pro removed their major-winning IGL Dzhami ‘Jame’ Ali in favour of Denis ‘electroNic’ Sharipov IGLing. The last two times the NaVi legend has IGL’d, the roster has shortly fallen apart after. But they certainly have exciting talent and individuals such as FL4MUS.
At the end of last year, Saw lost Michel ‘ewjerkz’ Pinto and Rafael ‘arrozdoce’ Wing – their two best performers – as well as their coach Danny ‘Berry’ Krüger. For a regional team, replacing that level of talent isn’t simple. 2025 may be a year of pain for Saw.
As for Pain, it looks like their year might be one of joy as they qualified to the last 8 of BLAST Bounty. The roster, led by Rodrigo ‘biguzera’ Bittencourt added David Tapia ‘dav1deuS’ Maldonado to their 2025 roster. dav1deuS showed no signs of needing a settling in period as he performed well straight off the bat for the Brazilian org.
It had been well understood that FlyQuest’s main problem was the lack of product from their AWPer, Alistair ‘alistair’ Johnston. While the roster played tactically sound Counter-Strike under the leadership of former MOUZ IGL Christopher ‘dexter’ Nong, they found it difficult to live with teams who could dominate on the killfeed. FlyQuest have addressed that by signing Romanian AWPer Iulian ‘regali’ Harjău but is he enough to lift FlyQuest’s ceiling?
IEM Katowice 2025 prize money
The player prize pool for the event totals $1m, with an additional $250,000 dedicated to the Club Prize Pool – additional prize money designed specifically to benefit and incentivise organisations who attend ESL events.
The winners of IEM Katowice 2025 will receive $400,000 in player prize money and $250,000 in club prize money.
Additionally, IEM Katowice contributes to the Intel Grand Slam – a $1,000,000 prize for winning four ESL events, which must include at least one of IEM Katowice or Cologne, in a ten event timeframe.
Women’s Counter-Strike takes the stage at IEM Katowice 2025 once again
Imperial fe will attend IEM Katowice, marking the first time in Counter-Strike history that a female roster will be represented in the main IEM tournament.
IEM Katowice did previously have a women’s-only Challenge tournament, but that has since been scrapped and Impact is the main women’s league in Counter-Strike today.
Imperial’s ‘Valkyries’ will get to test their mettle as an IEM Katowice Stage 1 team, this time in a double-elimination bracket allowing for more room to breathe than the Blast single-elim format.
Interestingly, Furia Fe was also eligible for the invitation, sitting at 24th in the Valve Global Rankings on the invite date. However, they are unable to accept their invite due to Valve prohibiting two teams from the same organisation from attending the same event – a regulation designed to avoid a conflict of interest in competition. Heroic were the beneficiaries, taking the last spot due to Sangal’s core being ranked 25th in the world at the time.
Don’t miss the IEM Katowice 2025 watch party in London
Join a crowd of super fans and top UK gaming streamers at the UK’s Predator Live Viewing Party.
This will take place at Platform Bar, 2b Worship St, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 2AH from 4pm GMT on Sunday February 9th 2025.
Witness the world’s best Counter-Strike esports players clash in epic battles, fuel your fandom with themed activities and giveaways, and stand a chance to win exclusive Predator prizes!
Tickets to the IEM Katowice 2025 watch party are available from EventBrite here.
Esports News UK will bring you all the updates from the three stages of IEM Katowice, from the first game of the play-ins to the trophy lift, so stay tuned for upcoming content including predictions from some of the UK’s best casting talent.
Darragh Harbinson is a freelance writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK as well as the likes of UKCSGO, Dexerto and Rush B Media.
