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As said, the CS2: IEM Katowice 2025 is part of the IEM series, the world’s oldest global pro gaming tour, which consists of a number of international eSports competitions hosted in various nations and covering every corner of the globe. As of 2024, these Intel-sponsored Electronic Sports League (ESL)-approved competitions feature Counter-Strike 2 and StarCraft II events. In its early years, the IEM series used to provide tournaments for a variety of other games, including League of Legends, Quake Live, Warcraft III, and others.

As for the organizer, ESL, which organizes the tournament in collaboration with its parent company, ELS FACEIT Group, it has grown to be the largest eSports company in the world since its launch in 2000.

The CS2: IEM Katowice 2025 is included in the Intel Grand Slam Series, which honors teams for winning multiple S-Tier tournaments run by ESL, either IEMs or ESL-run CS Major Championship. Season 5 is ongoing, and the Intel Grand Slam rewards $1,000,000 to the first team to win four such tournaments in a 10-event span, starting from IEM Rio 2023. The players are those who receive this prize straight.

Where and When Will the CS2: IEM Katowice 2025 Be Held?

The prestigious tournament in the Polish city of Katowice, which was nicknamed by the eSports fans the “Hall of Heroes“ and is one of seven main events in the ESL Pro Tour (EPT) 2025 calendar, will kick off on January 29 with the Play-In Stage and conclude with the eagerly-awaited Playoffs, whose Grand Final is to be played on February 9. Just like the organizers got the fans and players accustomed, only the Playoffs will be opened to a live audience in Spodek, an iconic arena among the CS2 aficionados. This flying-saucer-like multipurpose complex can receive between 8,000 and 11,000 spectators to its grandstands, depending on the event setting.

Starting with IEM Katowice 2025, where the total prize money will rise from $1 million to $1.25 million, with $1 million going into the hands of players and $250k to team organizations, ESL announced a major increase to its prize pools for 2025. The goal of this innovation is to establish a stable environment in which teams can provide players with a competitive base of pay and organizational structure by dividing prize money between players and teams. Nearly half of the player-belonging prize pool will go to those playing for the eventual tournament winners: $400,000. The second-placed side will get $180,000, while 3rd-4th will earn $80,000. Then the distribution goes as follows: 5th-6th ($40,000), 7th-8th ($24,000), 9th-12th ($16,000), 13th-16th ($10,000), 17th-20th ($4,500), and 21st-24th ($2,500).

Which Teams Will Take Part in the CS2: IEM Katowice 2025?

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The Valve Global Standings will be the basis for all invites to the Play-In Stage and, naturally, direct berth distribution, i.e., direct invitations for the CS: IEM Katowice 2025; the ESL World Ranking will no longer be used as a criterion. Anyway, we’ll have to wait a bit more to learn the names of the teams that will take part.

Eight best-ranked teams from Valve’s ranking will get direct qualification for the Group Stage, while the remaining 16 will have to get there via Play-In. So, the Play-In Stage is where the tournament begins on January 29. When this phase with the double-elimination bracket in which all matches will be Bo3 ends, and it will be on January 31, the top eight teams will advance to the Group Stage, where they’ll meet eight “privileged” teams. Two double-elimination format groups will be formed, each with eight teams. All matches of this phase, which will start on January 1 and conclude on February 6, are Bo3. The top three teams from each group advance to the Playoffs, and they’ll be spread like this: Group Stage winners advance to the Semifinals, runners-up advance to the Quarterfinals as the High Seeds, and third-place teams advance to the Quarterfinals as the Low Seeds. The Playoffs will commence on February 7 with a single-elimination bracket. The Quarterfinals and Semifinals are Bo3, while the Grand Final on February 9 is Bo5.

Who’ll Win the CS2: IEM Katowice 2025?

Spirit, FaZe, Vitality, The MongolZ, MOUZ… it’s a long list of favorites for the title in Katowice. Let’s stick to the first two we listed, given that they played in the final of the recent Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, in which Spirit prevailed 2-1.

Team Spirit have advanced to an almost unbeatable level after Danil ”donk” Kryshkovets joined the team last year. Now, when Spirit are against them, every team gets scared even before the match. The Russian side sweeps everyone in their path, and no one wants to play against them. It’s been a while since a team this cohesive, strategically formidable, and individually talented appeared in Counter-Strike.

FaZe Clan’s performance had declined prior to PGL Major Copenhagen 2024. They needed to come up with something new because it felt like other teams had already worked out their style. Furthermore, an American team’s players lacked consistency in their individual performances. Everything got better starting in Copenhagen; it was similar in Shanghai, as they advanced to the Grand Final in both events. They’ll undoubtedly be the “dark horse” in Katowice.

Tournament outright odds are one of the most well-liked and straightforward betting markets available, and both new and experienced bettors use it on the top CS2 bet website they choose. Outright odds—actually, any kind of odds—aren’t yet available, though, as of this writing.

Pros and Cons of the CS2: IEM Katowice 2025 Favorites

Features of the CS2: IEM Katowice 2025

The first edition of IEM Katowice was in 2013, but even though it was a part of the IEM series (IEM Season VII), it was a side event. It was even named differently: Your Road to Katowice. In 2014 and 2015, it was branded as ESL One: Katowice and part of the ESL Major Series One. From 2016 to 2022, it was called the IEM World Championship and was the final event of the season in question. Since 2023, it’s been called IEM Katowice. All in all, there were 12 events hosted by Katowice, 10 of which were within IEM. Fnatic are the most successful team at IEM Katowice, whatever the official name of the tournament, having claimed three titles.

The previous IEM tournament in Katowice, the 2024 edition, showed a solid improvement in viewership compared to 2023. The top viewership for IEM Katowice 2024 was approximately 972,000, a rise of over 200,000 from 2023. As a result, it was the fourth most-watched Katowice event in history. However, even though these are impressive numbers, some other IEM tournaments before, such as the one in Rio in 2022, had considerably greater viewership: 1.38 million viewers and an average of 545,000 people watching the matches. And even that is smaller than some of the tournament predecessors.

The CS2: IEM Katowice 2025 will be broadcast on both official ESL’s YouTube and Twitch channels in English. The tournament will also be covered by various CS2 community casters, offering streams on Twitch in other languages for fans across the world: “1pvcs” in French, “99damage” in German, “csgo_mc” in Russian, etc. That’s how it was this year.