Victories for FURIA, Apeks conclude opening round of IEM Cologne Play-in

It's all best-of-threes from here on out.

The opening round of games have concluded in Cologne with FURIA and Apeks securing wins over Grayhound and BIG, respectively, bringing an end to the best-of-one portion of the event. The pair of victors advance to the second round of the upper bracket, where they'll play for a spot in the main group stage of IEM Cologne on Thursday.

Conversely, BIG and Grayhound have dropped to the lower bracket and will be fighting for their tournament lives, with the German team, in particular, struggling while using Efekan "⁠S3NSEY⁠" Topaloglu in place of Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski. Their path won't get any easier as Liquid await them in the lower bracket, while Grayhound will face Imperial in their own lower bracket matchup.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023 Play-in
27/07/2023	Astralis 12:30 Apeks	Match
27/07/2023	Imperial 16:00 Grayhound	Match
27/07/2023	Liquid 16:35 BIG	Match
27/07/2023	Monte 19:40 FURIA	Match

FURIA got off to a strong start with their new roster as they dispatched of Grayhound 16-11 on Ancient. The Australian side looked competitive during the map, but couldn't withstand Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato's lurks on the T side nor Marcelo "⁠chelo⁠" Cespedes's opening kills throughout the map, with the pair leading the way to victory for their side.

Apeks were in cruise control at the onset of their map versus BIG, running up a 7-1 lead thanks to a blistering start from Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad before the German team began to claw things back. Alas, the recovery was in vain as Apeks locked things down in the second half, closing out the map 16-10 to cast the hometown hopefuls down to the lower bracket.