ESL confirm IEM Cologne invites

12-6-2023 20:16

The lineup for the first Big Event of the autumn season has been announced by the tournament organizer.

ESL have confirmed the invites for IEM Cologne 2023 ahead of the next edition of their premier summer tournament. The event will host a total of 24 teams in Germany's fourth-largest city, battling it out for a $1,000,000 prize pool between July 25-August 6.

In a similar fashion to the previous two editions of IEM Cologne, the 2023 rendition will also use a Play-In in order to determine the eight teams that will advance to the group stage. Four teams were directly invited to the second phase due to their performance at Big Events in 2023, including G2 thanks to their win at IEM Katowice and FaZe, who triumphed at ESL Pro League Season 17.

Heroic were invited based on their position in the ESL World Ranking

Paris Major champions Vitality were also invited after their victory at IEM Rio, and will be joined by ENCE following their win at IEM Dallas. The remaining group stage teams were invited based on their position in the ESL World Ranking and include HEROIC, Cloud9, Natus Vincere, and GamerLegion. These teams were among the most consistent performers throughout the first half of the year and their accomplishments were reflected in their ranking.

BLAST Paris Major quarter-finalists Monte and Liquid are among the teams invited to the first double-elimination bracket and will be joined by Major semi-finalists Apeks in the Play-In. MOUZ, fnatic, and Ninjas in Pyjamas will also be in attendance due to their top 20 positions in the organizer's ranking.

BIG Academy will also compete at the event thanks to their victory at ESL Meisterschaft Spring 2023 Finals, where they defeated ALTERNATE aTTaX to become the only German team in attendance.

ESL reveal IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne dates for 2023

Virtus.pro are the only team outside the HLTV top 15 to not be in attendance, and will have to wait until Gamers8 later in August to take the field after the player break. Instead, fellow Russians from FORZE will make the trip to Cologne, alongside 9INE, Grayhound, and Into the Breach.

The MongolZ will be the only Asian team set to make the trip to Europe while paiN, FURIA, and Imperial will form the Brazilian contingent at the tournament. Astralis are also set to return to Cologne after a semi-final run at the previous edition, hoping to improve on the inconsistent form they showed at the last two events before of the summer break.

The invites for IEM Cologne are as follows:

The invites for the Play-In are as follows:

Ez 4 faze

2023-06-12 20:17

18 replies

wow some questionable invites here

2023-06-12 20:21

14 replies

its based on ESL rankings

2023-06-12 20:50

4 replies

ty David

2023-06-12 20:54

Cheers dave

2023-06-12 23:56

1 reply

thx dave

2023-06-13 01:17

Thanks Mr Beckham

2023-06-13 01:57

They are scared of Imperial beating tier 1 teams like they did in blast so they put all good teams in play-in

2023-06-12 21:05

2 replies

lol

2023-06-12 22:23

Brazilians 😂😂😂

2023-06-13 08:59

There is legit NO invites at all here, every team here have played and scored point on the ESL ranking to get here. (even tho their ranking is quite bad, its way better than Blast partner shit show

2023-06-12 23:08

+1 finally someone with a brain

2023-06-13 07:07

too many

2023-06-13 00:23

i suggest just kick c9 and c9 make a rooster change, kicking buster and getting KaiRon

2023-06-13 04:45

I think it is a role issue. they should kick Hobbit not buster. buster is a support player. As everyone said, -interz +buster changed nothing. right now they should -hobbit as he is the older one and he is not consistent either. it may change their game

2023-06-13 06:41

ESL mafia syndicate

2023-06-13 07:20

Big academy lmao

2023-06-13 02:19

And not BIG lol

2023-06-13 11:43

Because academy team qualified through esl meisterschaft (played with krimbo and hyped tho.. i guess the main team will play tho

2023-06-13 12:22

Siuhy not leaving yet

he will, MOUZ contract gonna be worth the playin

2023-06-12 20:52

assuming it's dexter's fault that torszi sucked ass then yeah, sure, if not, idk, might be a really bad downgrade

2023-06-12 23:07

big academy EZ qualify

6 replies

haha big academy is invited but big is not

2023-06-12 23:34

5 replies

I guess they plan a break at this time?

no, big academy werent invited; they won the qualifier. big themselves narrowly missed out due to the esl ranking because they sucked at big events last year.. :(

2023-06-13 00:56

3 replies

Lol sad. Big academy won meisterschaft while the senior team is just bunch of streamer noobs

2023-06-13 14:02

they rarely even stream :(

2023-06-13 15:28

Probably they would not be invited even if they had enough points due to conflict of interest.

2023-06-14 14:02

Will GL even survive to Cologne?

2023-06-12 20:18

I’m sure they’ll still be alive after Cologne

even if siuhy and iM leave they will still have the core to play so yeah

2023-06-12 20:35

BIG Academy but no BIG lol

13 replies

Big Academy is better

2023-06-12 20:56

academy team got the slot through tryharding in ESL Meisterschaft... in the final game they played with krimbo and hyped lmao

2023-06-12 20:23

10 replies

Really?

2023-06-12 21:20

9 replies

yop. there was even the Grand final in CCT West Europe Series 4 vs SAW at the same time. "gob b, shushan substitute hyped, Krimbo." hltv.org/matches/2364952/big-vs-saw-cct-..

2023-06-12 21:25

8 replies

No fucking way hahahahahahahhaha

2023-06-12 22:06

Lol

2023-06-12 22:27

Thats funny

2023-06-12 22:47

top kek

2023-06-12 23:16

Lol xdd

2023-06-13 02:28

Hahaha wtf 😂😂 in germany its called "ehrenlos"

2023-06-13 09:02

And tizian was playing too

2023-06-13 12:24

Shushan lol

2023-06-13 13:14

Ez 4 jkaem

big academy and no big clan

and it was not even fair. faven and kimbo played the final to get the invite. Same time a grand final hltv.org/matches/2364952/big-vs-saw-cct-.. gob b played and some random i dont i even know

2023-06-12 21:27

"Big Big Academy" 8-men roster

2023-06-13 01:28

9INE W

Monte gonna get cooked so hard No sdy no win

Also ez 4 9

he will be back by cologne, the big question mark is if they will be able to cross the border tho

2023-06-12 20:42

Big Academy :D

No BIG in Cologne wow

Big academy ?

They won esl qualifier so yes

2023-06-12 21:41

oh ok

2023-06-12 21:44

It was German qualifier but it was easy without big on it

2023-06-12 21:47

Can't have both in it because of conflict of interest so they dump the Academy in to give them playing time.

2023-06-12 21:53

They tryharded with krimbo and hype in the academy roster dafq u talkin about 😂😂

2023-06-13 09:04

no VP? they won ESL challenger yesterday

they are still to low in esl ranking

wasnt that for EPL slot?

2023-06-12 20:24

Yep, they qualified for Pro League directly. The criteria for Cologne is based on ESL Rankings.

Correct

2023-06-12 21:07

Im not sure if that ESL challeneger is even counted for Cologne ratings at all

2023-06-12 22:48

big academy instead of big??? wow

7 replies

big academy made it from esl meisterschaft, didn't receive invite

2023-06-12 20:20

didnt big participate in esl meisterschaft?

they didn't, only academy

sad for them

kinda

nah they'll play with the main team (or some mix of both, i cant keep up with with their roster but tabsen will play 100%)

2023-06-12 20:34

i hope

2023-06-12 21:33

Na’Vi have already won, no need to play it

2023-06-12 20:19

Who ?

2023-06-12 21:08

2023-06-13 02:01

BIG Academy lets goo

Would be hilarious if they manage to kick some teams out of the tournament.

2023-06-13 19:00

Is this this the first time an academy team made it to a Tier 1 event? I think so

I think its fair to say that the play-in is only a qualifier for the tier1 event. Some may argue otherwise. Also Im pretty sure that if we were looking for previoues tournaments with similar composition of teams as the play-ins has, there would surely be some academy teams here and there.

2023-06-12 22:53

I think fnatic Academy did it some years ago and they had to represent another org because of conflict of interest

2023-06-13 00:03

why navi and c9 invited to cologne lmao they should come from play in

2023-06-12 20:22

No VP is a joke

12 replies

Invites are given to best teams according to ESL Ranking, they only won 1 t2 tournament so it was clear they won't get invited

Look at the list again and come back to your argument.

2023-06-12 20:28

??? Invites are based of this ranking pro.eslgaming.com/worldranking/csgo/rank..

2023-06-12 20:29

"they only won 1 t2 tournament so it was clear they won't get invited" Yet that ranking allows teams that didn't win anything to get invited... VP should have been in the tournament, especially after yesterday's win. They're being penalized for not participating in enough esl tournaments when they clear half of the play-in. Get rid of Pain or Forze.

PaiN and Forze played well in EPL and both qualified for Major, is it that hard to understand?

2023-06-12 20:36

Pain had a joke group in EPL and got into the major through America RMR. Plus ESL ranking is trash because not only takes into account dumb tournaments like "ESEA Cash Cup" but also the system is fully based on the players. Every VP player has 66.5 points except n0rbert because he replaced Kairon. So one of the best teams won't compete because they didn't play retarded cash cup tournaments and made a change while worse teams get to the tournament.

2023-06-12 22:49

They aren't one of the best teams lol I wouldn't say they are even top 20 they would easily get clapped by 70% of play-in teams. Also 1-3 in RMR group easier than Americas one. They won t2 tournament and you cry that they should be invited over teams that performed well in more events. EDIT: Even with those additional 40 points from KaiR0N- they wouldn't make it,

2023-06-12 22:59

Not a joke, based

2023-06-12 20:33

imgur.com/a/buzwrvG

2023-06-12 20:37

so funny. did you steal this from odnoklasniki ru ?

not wasting time discussing with you due to flag

Stacked, love it!

STOP INVITING ASTRALIS FFS

2023-06-12 20:25

Stop crying. They're invited because of their performance at past ESL events (not that they did great, but they did good enough apparently) just like most of the other teams.

2023-06-12 20:38

They also missed Kato earlier this year so some things are improved at least.

Ironically he only reason they missed Katowice is that they replaced farlig with device losing all of farlig's points and gaining none since device had been on an extended leave.

2023-06-12 21:09

Actually it wasn't the only reason. ESL decided to make Elisa Masters Espoo worth fewer points and the NA Cash Cup worth more RETROACTIVELY thus screwing over Astralis.

2023-06-12 21:12

Well astralis get to farm points from blast events while NA cash cup teams can't . So its only fair

2023-06-12 21:29

Except EG IS a BLAST partner team.

2023-06-12 22:07

They are last place anyways

OG???

Happy that teams like Apeks, ITB, GL and Mongolz got in. And also is funny that there is BIG Academy :D

these tournaments after player break where roster changes will happen are weird. u can only change up to two players or u have to give up the spot.

BIG Academy > BIG omagalul

where is og?

Great invited all around! GG

Big academy? Wtf hahahah

2023-06-12 20:40

big academy lul

2023-06-12 20:43

Lets go Imperial!

2023-06-12 20:45

Imagine academy team playing in tier 1 and not main team .

2023-06-12 20:47

maybe finally a trophy for C9?

they're not winning a Cologne where all the big teams give a shit

2023-06-12 20:55

oh.... maybe next time then😟

Reading this made me feel sad too

2023-06-13 02:49

big academy and no big HAHAHAHAHAHA

Wheres VP?

No aurora, spirit (or academy) or vp? wtf

Big Academy is there but no Big xdd

22 replies

Big Academy disband to get BIG in IEM Cologne or Tabsen Faven k1to Krimbo hyped to stand in for BIG Academy

2023-06-12 21:00

21 replies

pretty sure its not allowed

16 replies

If this isnt allowed they wouldnt play in cct cup when they can win mickey mouse german qualifier to get spot in cologne lmao

2023-06-12 21:32

mickey mouse german qualifiers are called fix and foxy german qualifiers here

2023-06-12 21:50

It is because they played Meisterschaft with Krimbo and hyped who are both in the main lineup. Not sure exactly how it works but as far as I understood it in an article they will play with the main roster.

2023-06-12 21:36

11 replies

dang that is some puppeteer fiddling if I ever heard one

2023-06-12 21:54

Well you need to be creative if you cant do it yourself.

those players were just stand-in they aren't part of the academy lineup.

2023-06-12 22:13

big really becoming such a disgusting org...

why because they tried everything to be at the biggest event in Germany? and BIG is the next in ESL Ranking that gets an invite. If academy team declines the invite the main team is at the event

2023-06-12 22:25

its disgusting that theyre ruining the chances for talents to play at such a big event just because theyre too shit qualify on their own... was allready a disgusting move to use two main roster players to play the german championship finals even tho arrow and sensey played the entire season

2023-06-12 23:36

do you mean talents like spidi that would be there instead LUL

2023-06-13 08:12

no their academy team thst actually qualified

2023-06-13 12:07

I mean attax was in the final so their team was the team that had the biggest chance to qualify instead of the academy team.

2023-06-13 12:18

what are you talking about??? i was talking about it would be digusting for the big main team to take chance away from the academy players to play in cologne

2023-06-13 12:33

as far as i know, they only can change two players. Krimbo and Hyped are qualified through the team directly, so it only would be possible to add Tabsen / Faven and remove two of the academy guys. But this will be really sad for this 2 academy guys. We will see what is happening.

2023-06-13 07:56

AAAAANNDD as far as i know Krimbo and hyped do not count. there is the core roster, where players have to be part of for at least half of the last season. So Krimbo and hyped will still count as substitutes for IEM Cologne.

2023-06-14 20:47

nope 3 players of the academy teams have to stay.

yep, but Krimbo and Hyped are anyway in the team, so it is possible, that only one academy member will stay. Sad for the other 2, but we will see what is happening.

2023-06-13 07:57

krimbo and hyped were stand-ins they aren't part of the lineup. So they wouldn't count for the 3 I assume. But the BIG team is the next one on esl ranking invite list so if esl agrees and the academy declines they are in. ESl could say no if you do that they invite 22. If they dont wanna abuse the rule like that

2023-06-13 08:10

I bet if academy declines attax will get the spot. because they got second on ESL Meisterschaft. And Academy got the spot through ESLM.

2023-06-14 20:53

monte letsgooo

2023-06-12 20:57

cloud9 invited straight to the event? Lmao, why.

>BIG Academy lost hard

KEKL where BNE?

2023-06-12 21:13

they suck in every tournament apart from major

Only one NA team and it's for the Play-in, it's actually so over for the NA friends

BIG academy instead of VP lol

2023-06-12 21:17

ESL Meisterschaft winners

2023-06-12 21:21

Local team qualfied via ESLM

2023-06-12 22:12

LETS GO APEKS!

2023-06-12 21:18

VP , BIG? Wtf? there is lower teams who got invited but teams like VP , BIG not?

Not lower teams by ESL Ranking: pro.eslgaming.com/worldranking/csgo/rank..

2023-06-12 22:19

ITB making it is clutch af, if they get a win or 2, most likely they make ESL Pro League as Well

Hell yeah! I think currently they don't have many matches which will give them a well earned break in time for ESL pro league and cologne.

2023-06-13 11:05

There is 1 impostor among us

2023-06-12 21:40

c9 getting an invite is a fucking scam

How?

they kinda suck right now, last place at blast spring finals, no playoffs at iem dallas, they weren't in Paris, yet somehow they are still high in rankings,

2023-06-12 23:49

>Virtus.pro are the only team outside the HLTV top 15 to not be in attendance ???

2023-06-12 21:48

why??? They are 24 in the ESL ranking

2023-06-12 22:22

there are hundreds of teams outside the top 15 to not be in attendence

2023-06-13 00:44

now i get it thanks

should definitely have been "only team *inside* HLTV top 15 to not be in attendance" as they are 14th in the current ranking

2023-06-13 02:26

If Fnatic will not qualify i'm not watching the event!

No VP this is a joke

2023-06-12 21:57

Because they are russians :s

2023-06-12 22:17

Forze are also, not a valid reason

why no bad news eagles? albanians would go crazy in germany

2023-06-12 22:01

In think germans know how crazy they go in Germany. So no need to invite more

2023-06-13 08:14

BIG made it LUL

2023-06-12 22:11

Academy XD

2023-06-12 22:43

BIG new line up look good

VP and BIG Robbed

Imperial ez

2023-06-12 22:42

Which game?

2023-06-12 22:52

gamerlegion kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

2023-06-12 22:58

Someone still have tickets? o.O

Imperial Ez

2023-06-12 23:40

no spirit academy?? ok

2023-06-12 23:48

cs2?

2023-06-12 23:51

Big academy?!?! Would be funnier if spirit made it too

2023-06-13 00:31

WHAT ARE THESE INVITES LOL

2023-06-13 00:32

ez Apeks

2023-06-13 01:13

no VP ? haizzz

Cloud9 is waste of spot

2023-06-13 02:24

gamerlegion direct invitation, what a joke

2023-06-13 03:02

BIG Acad??

2023-06-13 03:45

LMAO NO BIG MAIN TEAM ACADEMY TEAM BETTER 💀💀

2023-06-13 03:53

BIG Academy > BIG

2023-06-13 04:05

Big Academy will play with Krimbo and hyped?

2023-06-13 04:16

+ tabseN + k1to

Liquid should've just been invited to cologne instead of play-ins. It's not like they aren't going to quality, right... right?

2023-06-13 04:54

Is it confirmed GO? or are they still gonna see if this is gonna be CS2?

2023-06-13 05:02

Csgo

where is VP ????

2023-06-13 05:25

EZ44ZE

2023-06-13 05:33

9ine invited for the play in, lol.

2023-06-13 05:35

esl ranking says hello

No BIG but BIG academy???

2023-06-13 06:19

No Big?

2023-06-13 06:35

BIG can change 2 players from the academy team. So it would be possible, that Tabsen / Faven play cologne, but then they have to remove 2 academy guys.

2023-06-13 08:00

what about krimbo and hyped are they count to the academy team or main team? i dont think they let booth out of cologne.

2023-06-14 17:12

as far as i know, 3 players who played most of the german championsship, has to play cologne. So if they want to add Krimbo / Hyped, the other 3 academy players can't be changed. But we will see what is happening.

2023-06-16 10:13

BIG stand-in for BIG academy soon

2023-06-13 06:48

could be possible. But for the 2 academy boys, this isn't really nice. But we will see, what BIG will be doing with this strange situation.

no BUG but their academy team.. AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

2023-06-13 07:05

academy team earned it.

2023-06-13 08:35

Why tf is region done first then global, I swear its been global first then regional every other year?

2023-06-13 07:08

I wish c9 will make changes before the start

2023-06-13 08:41

G2 max should get play in inv

i know it's based on esl ranking but undeserved for c9 to get invited straight into main stage tbh. Esl pro league points carry them so hard

2023-06-13 10:17

ITB LFG!

2023-06-13 11:46

Why is everyone scared of BNE on LAN ? So many shit brasil teams but no BNE invite ?

2023-06-13 12:05

big academy? wtf

2023-06-13 13:17

Why do clown9 get an invite? They suck...

2023-06-13 13:28

+1 wasted spot

2023-06-13 14:32

big academy hahahahahaha big main roster now fully clown tabsen plz go out of this hell

2023-06-13 13:51

only one NA team in the whole tournament and it still feels too much for me

2023-06-13 14:00

Where’s complexity

2023-06-14 01:37

This event will be in cs2?

2023-06-14 07:02

Nice

2023-06-14 09:04

Gamerlegion without Siuhy is going to get destroyed at this event.

2023-06-15 11:37

And they should. 1 fluke run got them there while 3 4 tier1 teams didnt get invite

2023-06-15 12:20

tier 1 vs tier 2 is such a blur right now that I'm not willing to downplay some of the teams like Apeks until they are at the LAN.

2023-06-15 13:00

I agree but there is no universe where esl ranking is relevant. Beside GL there is few more teams who do not belong here. And spirit, vp, big, etc wasnt invited

2023-06-15 13:26

Spirit is in the middle of a roster shakeup and have had a terrible year (coming from someone with a spirit flair). VP literally didn't play for the entire major cycle +dallas and aren't a blast partner and despite winning Challenger over Ence (which is a big accomplishment don't get it twisted) they simply lacked activity (including Online games) to get enough points. Also Big not making the major or Dallas or playoffs of any events besides Rio means they also lack points in comparison to teams who made it the major legends stage (ITB, 9INE) and are qualified legit for pro league (Monte, Apeks and currently ITB are in the EU conference). if this invite was done a month later then VP would have got an invite but lack of attendance should be punished.

2023-06-15 14:46

Even in shaken condition they are better then GL and C9 + 90% of playin invites

2023-06-15 22:15

serbian cs lul

2023-06-16 20:21

In form probably but again if you aren't playing in a lot of events (including online) then why should you be invited over teams that grinded harder and are doing better NOW.

2023-06-16 21:55