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The six Intel Extreme Masters IEM Katowice 2025 playoffs teams have been confirmed today, including the two semi-finalists.
Team Vitality, Virtus Pro and Eternal Fire advanced from Group A, with Vitality beating Virtus 2-0 in the upper bracket final to advance straight to the semi-finals.
This means UK Counter-Strike pro player mezii, French veteran IGL apEX (pictured above) and the rest of Vitality will skip Friday February 7th, and instead play in the Spodek Arena on Saturday February 8th against the winner of quarter final match-up between The Mongolz and Eternal Fire.
Mezii is the only UK player in the tournament and his team have been on form so far.
Could they lift another IEM trophy after Vitality won IEM Cologne 2024? We shall see this weekend.
On the other side of the group stage, in Group B, Navi, The Mongolz and Team Spirit have all progressed to the IEM Katowice 2025 playoffs.
Navi beat The Mongolz in the upper bracket Group B final, so they have advanced to the semi-finals on February 8th, and will play against the winner of the Virtus Pro vs Team Spirit quarter final.
Speaking of Team Spirit, the IEM Katowice 2024 winners and Shanghai Major 2024 winners had a scare in Group B. They lost 2-1 to Navi in the upper bracket, beat Liquid in the lower bracket then went 1-0 down to GamerLegion (with UK coach ash) earlier this evening, in a 13-11 first map.
But Spirit found their form to eliminate GamerLegion from the competition, with 13-6 and 13-4 victories in maps two and three.
17-year-old GamerLegion player PR has also been making a name for himself.
GamerLegion have since queried Valve over what appears to be a ‘calculation discrepancy’ in the latest CS rankings update, which puts them outside the top 12, affecting their eligibility for event invites.
‘Mezii’s performances are notable, ash’s stock couldn’t higher’ – thoughts on the group results leading to the IEM Katowice 2025 playoffs
Darragh Harbinson, CS writer for Esports News UK, writes: “I’d say mezii’s performances are notable, he’s playing more rotation/star spots now with ropz in the team, and has stood out in them.
“It’s the same for GL’s UK coach ash too, GL have outperformed expectations, it was a great run for them all things considered, and ash’s stock could hardly be higher at the moment.
“In Group A, seeing Falcons finish last with NiKo losing to former teammates is a big story. There were extremely close games for Faze Vs Vitality, G2 and Eternal Fire – with G2 and Faze narrowly missing out on the Spodek Arena (Faze lost 25-22 in game one against Eternal Fire in the lower bracket final).
“Eternal Fire are continuing strong following their finalist showing at Blast Bounty too.
“In Group B, Navi finally took down Spirit at a big event. It was a very close match with a lot of clips of Navi coach B1ad3 losing his mind!
“Mouz (albeit with a stand-in) started life without siuhy with two bad losses. And Liquid were punished for mistakes in their match against The Mongolz, which led them to Spirit in the lower bracket, who they’re not good enough to compete with yet.”
All eyes now turn towards the Spodek Arena as we approach the climax of the event: the IEM Katowice 2025 playoffs.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
