The biggest stories and plays from day three of the IEM Cologne group stage

Find out what went down on the penultimate day of the group stage in Germany.

The end of the IEM Cologne group stage is in sight as a total of four teams have now secured spots in the playoffs, and just one day is left to determine the final pairing that will join them. Four teams also had their tournament aspirations put to bed and some big names were cast down to the lower bracket — take a look at what went down below.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023
31/07/2023	MOUZ Finished 0:2 Vitality	Match
31/07/2023	Astralis Finished 2:0 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
31/07/2023	G2 Finished 2:0 FaZe	Match
31/07/2023	Natus Vincere Finished 2:1 OG	Match
31/07/2023	Cloud9 Finished 2:0 Monte	Match
31/07/2023	fnatic Finished 1:2 GamerLegion	Match

Vitality & G2 lock in playoff spots

Vitality continue to showcase excellent form following the addition of Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan, and they truly asserted their dominance versus MOUZ to secure a berth to the Lanxess Arena. The Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek-led side mustered just nine rounds combined between Inferno and Mirage and were subjected to batterings in the first halves of both maps, with Vitality's riflers shining around the omnipresent Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut.

G2 dealt a similar thrashing to FaZe, who looked a shadow of themselves for much of the series. The IEM Katowice champions looked to be back in their best form, with Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač going so far as to say they felt even better than they did at the start of the year, and it was evident early on as it was actually Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen who ran rampant over FaZe's defenses on Inferno. Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov and huNter- helped their side close things out on Ancient, with FaZe making the scoreline look a little less one-sided but ultimately being unable to recover from such a substantial deficit.

The result means that the grand final of IEM Cologne last year will be a lower bracket semi-final in the group stage this time around as NAVI and FaZe are set to lock horns in hopes of staving off elimination. The winner of that match isn't even guaranteed a playoff berth as they also need to beat the winner of MOUZ vs. Astralis to clinch the final spot in the Lanxess Arena, with the schedule meaning that whoever plays in that lower bracket final will need to play two best-of-three series tomorrow.

Cloud9 one win away from playoffs

Despite rocking up to Cologne with Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov as a stand-in for their star rifler Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov, Cloud9 have kept themselves alive in Group A and now sit just one win away from making it to the Lanxess Arena.

Read more

Ax1Le to miss IEM Cologne group stage

The Russian-majority team made waves during the off-season with the blockbuster signings of Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy, forming one of the most fearsome rosters post-break, but won't have the chance to play with their full lineup unless they make it to the playoffs.

They will have to make it past GamerLegion in the Group A lower bracket final to do so, with the side around Sanzhar "⁠neaLaN⁠" Iskhakov impressing with a narrow win over fnatic to keep their own tournament dreams alive. With the way that Cloud9 showed up versus Monte, however, things are looking for GamerLegion, who will have to find an answer to the red-hot form that Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov has showcased thus far.

Player of the day

Speaking of sh1ro, he earns our player of the day award thanks to his superlative performance on both Anubis and Ancient against Monte. The Russian AWPer stepped up with some round-turning plays and heroic site holds on the first map of the series and then entirely took over on Ancient, mustering nearly 30 frags in 27 rounds and producing additional highlight clips.

sh1ro stats for the series:

Other notable performances for the day include Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif's 1.99 rating on Inferno versus MOUZ, HooXi's 1.85-rated T side of Inferno versus FaZe, and m0NESY and huNter-'s 1.78 and 1.75 ratings, respectively, on Ancient.

HLTV live coverage of the day

IEM Cologne day three gallery

Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek: "The chemistry that we had just came back to us instantly"

Isak "⁠isak⁠" Fahlén: "We are happy with the players that we got"

Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan: "The goal is to make everyone in the team the best in their role"

Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius jokes: "It's going to be a sad thing removing one of my idols from the lower bracket"

Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy: "I believe that we can compete well, even create some kind of era for Counter-Strike"

Highlights