IEM Katowice viewer's guide

Running from Tuesday to Sunday, IEM Katowice 2018 will see 16 teams from all over the world duke it out for a share of the $500,000 prize pool, with the winner collecting $250,000.

This will be the sixth event in consideration for the Intel Grand Slam, which will award $1 million to the first team who wins four out of the ten eligible competitions. SK are currently leading the race, with two victories, while Ninjas in Pyjamas, FaZe and G2 have one apiece.

FaZe will be one of the favourites in Katowice

IEM Katowice will begin with two eight-team double-elimination groups, featuring best-of-three matches after the opening round. The group winners will go straight to the semi-finals, while the losing finalists and the third-placed sides will advance to the first round of the playoffs. The knockout stages, held at the Spodek Arena, will culminate with the best-of-five grand final.

Below you can find the group draw for the event:

Group A	Group B
SK	FaZe
Astralis	Ninjas in Pyjamas
Liquid	G2
TYLOO	fnatic
Cloud9	HEROIC
Gambit	Virtus.pro
Renegades	North
AVANGAR	ORDER

Here is what the full schedule for the tournament looks like:

Tuesday, February 27
12:00	Astralis	vs. Renegades	BO1
12:00	SK	vs. AVANGAR	BO1
13:10	Liquid	vs. Gambit	BO1
13:10	TYLOO	vs. Cloud9	BO1
14:20	Ninjas in Pyjamas	vs. North	BO1
14:20	FaZe	vs. ORDER	BO1
15:30	G2	vs. Virtus.pro	BO1
15:30	HEROIC	vs. fnatic	BO1
16:40	Group A Upper Semi #1		BO3
16:40	Group A Lower Match #1		BO3
20:10	Group A Upper Semi #2		BO3
20:10	Group A Lower Match #2		BO3
Wednesday, February 28
12:00	Group B Lower Match #1		BO3
12:00	Group B Lower Match #2		BO3
15:30	Group B Upper Semi #1		BO3
15:30	Group A Lower Match #3		BO3
19:00	Group B Upper Semi #2		BO3
19:00	Group A Lower Match #4		BO3
Thursday, March 1
12:00	Group B Lower Match #3		BO3
12:00	Group B Lower Match #4		BO3
15:30	Group B Lower Final		BO3
15:30	Group A Upper Final		BO3
19:00	Group A Lower Final		BO3
19:00	Group B Upper Final		BO3
Friday, March 2
13:00	Playoff Match #1		BO3
16:50	Playoff Match #2		BO3
Saturday, March 3
15:00	Semi-final #1		BO3
18:50	Semi-final #2		BO3
Sunday, March 4
17:00	Grand final		BO5

As for the on-air talent team, the organisation has invited some of the most familiar faces in the scene, including Alex "Machine" Richardson as desk host, Tres "⁠stunna⁠" Saranthus as a reporter, and former players Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill, Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović and Adam "⁠friberg⁠" Friberg as analysts.

Below you can find the on-air team for the main stream:

O.J. Borg - Stage Host
Alex "Machine" Richardson - Desk Host

Tres "stunna" Saranthus - Reporter

Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill - Analyst
Janko "YNk" Paunović - Analyst
Adam "friberg" Friberg - Analyst

Henry "HenryG" Greer - Commentator
Matt "Sadokist" Trivett - Commentator
Lauren "Pansy" Scott - Commentator
Jason "moses" O'Toole - Commentator

On the secondary stream there will be two pairs of commentators, as you can see below:

Harry "JustHarry" Russell - Commentator
Hugo Byron - Commentator
Alex "snodz" Byfield - Commentator
Jack "Jacky" Peters - Commentator

Finally, here is how the $500,000 prize-pool will be distributed among the participants:

1. $250,000
2. $100,000
3-4. $40,000
5-6. $15,000
7-8. $7,000
9-12. $4,000
13-16. $2,500