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

Catch up on the last day of the group stage of one of the biggest tournaments of the year.

The group stage of IEM Cologne is now done and six teams are set to do battle in the Lanxess Arena. Read on to find out who experienced the euphoria of victory and who tasted bitter defeat on the final day of the group stage in Germany.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023
31/07/2023	fnatic Finished 1:2 GamerLegion	Match
01/08/2023	FaZe Finished 0:2 Natus Vincere	Match
01/08/2023	MOUZ Finished 0:2 Astralis	Match
01/08/2023	Cloud9 Finished 2:1 GamerLegion	Match
01/08/2023	Vitality Finished 1:2 G2	Match
01/08/2023	Astralis Finished 2:1 Natus Vincere	Match
01/08/2023	ENCE Finished 2:1 HEROIC	Match

ENCE and G2 grab statement wins

Two teams secured statement wins in their final matches of the group stage, setting out their stall for the rest of the tournament by taking down two of the best teams in the world.

ENCE booked a spot in the semi-finals at the expense of HEROIC, and it was all thanks to some career-highlight rounds on the deciding map from their most recent addition, Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz. The Israeli rifler has been turning heads ever since he arrived in ENCE, his high-impact style of play earning many admirers, and that continued as he helped his team upset HEROIC. He even popped off afterwards, visibly telling Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller to "sit down."

The other statement victory was earned by G2, as they took down the reigning Major champions Vitality to secure their own semi-final spot. Vitality have looked in fine form since adding Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan in the off-season, the youngster fitting in seamlessly and allowing the squad to hit the ground running. That faltered as Vitality ran into a scary-looking G2, who have recovered from a shaky start to the season to seemingly hit their peak form.

Cloud9 reach the Lanxess with a stand-in

Cloud9 made what might be one of the most exciting transfer moves in history during the off-season, completing the blockbuster signings of Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy and Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov to create a super team. The entire community was salivating at the chance to see this titanic squad play in Cologne, but visa issues scuppered that and forced the team to use Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov in place of Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov.

It wasn’t pretty at times for Cloud9, and they had to recover from an opening loss to fnatic, but they made it work and qualified for the quarter-finals in the Lanxess Arena. Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov, Perfecto and Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov have all taken it in turns to put maps on their backs, and the team have been potent as a unit on the T side. The team are hopeful that Ax1Le will be able to return to the side for the playoffs, and those who love to watch the best players do their thing will be hopeful too!

Astralis oust NAVI from Cologne

Astralis sent Natus Vincere packing from IEM Cologne following a 2-1 victory in the lower bracket final, ending Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev's spree of always making it to the Lanxess Arena every time he's played in Cologne.

The Danes have Christian "⁠Buzz⁠" Andersen to thank for ensuring their victory as the young rifler was in stupendous form on the Overpass decider, recording his career-best rating of 2.02 en route to securing his team the victory. It was a well-earned reward after a long day for Astralis as they first had to defeat MOUZ in the morning, but they can walk away happy after securing a place in the quarter-finals of Cologne, where they will take on HEROIC on Friday.

An early elimination for FaZe

As one of the few top teams to abstain from making any changes to their roster in the off-season, FaZe seemed set to come into the new season with all guns blazing and win some titles. Instead, they’ve exited one of the biggest tournaments of the year prior to the playoffs, and endured a number of one-sided losses in the process.

G2 comfortably had FaZe's number throughout their upper bracket bout, and Natus Vincere battered the European combine on Mirage to open their elimination series. Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen said that he felt his team were not themselves on three of the four maps they played today, and they will need to do some soul-searching ahead of the final months of the year.

Player of the day

Buzz takes the accolade of player of the day for his immense contribution to Astralis' elimination of Natus Vincere. The 20-year-old was on absolute fire throughout the Overpass decider, single-handedly obliterating NAVI's Monster defenses round after round and contributing with clutch rounds early into his team's CT side effort to boot.

He ended the map with a career-high 2.02 rating, 31-12 K-D, 121 ADR, and an incredible 2.38 impact rating, all while sporting 0.43 DPR despite constantly (and often solo) entrying for his team.

It was a day full of match-winning performances in Germany, so there are three honourable mentions. s1mple deserves recognition for his 1.50-rated performance against FaZe, which included a 40-bomb on the second map, Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov gets a nod for his incredible Mirage showing against Vitality, and NertZ's momentum-shifting rounds against HEROIC earn the final shout-out.

HLTV live coverage of the day

IEM Cologne day four gallery

René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen: "Trash talk is a part of every sport"

David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský: "It doesn't matter if you have good stats or not, you still feel bad if you are losing"

Highlights