IEM Katowice's Play-in and Group Stage fantasy games are live

The Spring Season's second and third fantasy games are open to play, IEM Katowice's Play-in and Group Stage, although the latter is still missing the complete team list.

donk fans are picking the youngster in droves

HLTV Fantasy Spring Season 2024

The fantasy season began with the BLAST Spring Groups game, but even if you missed it you're still in time to be competitive by joining the following games.

IEM Katowice 2024 Play-in

Format

- You can create your teams on the Fantasy page, here.

- 16-team double-elimination bracket. The top eight teams advance to the main stage.

- The opening matches are best-of-one, the remaining matches are best-of-three.

- Padding will be awarded to the teams that win their first two matches.

Teams

Virtus.pro
Cloud9
FURIA
Apeks
Astralis
Spirit
Eternal Fire
BetBoom

BIG
GamerLegion
The MongolZ
HEROIC
M80
ENCE
Rooster
Rebels

Things to note

- BO1 matches have a 0.5 multiplier for a player's rating-based points. It’s also harder to trigger most boosters in a BO1, so it makes sense to consider saving the hard hitters for round two. Or do exactly the opposite, you decide!

- Virtus.pro is the highest-ranked team of the event, and they are seeded against Rooster in their opening match. In the event of a win, their subsequent opponent will be either substitute-weakened M80 or GamerLegion, who are 15 places below in the world ranking. This makes VP the heaviest favorite to make it through with two wins.

Player prices

- It's impossible to evaluate Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov, HLTV's eighth-best player of 2023, and Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets, currently the hottest prospect in the game, playing together at an elite LAN event like IEM Katowice. Therefore, we manually set the prices of both at $223K, just behind the event's highest-priced player, Evgenii "⁠FL1T⁠" Lebedev. The community was eager to have donk over sh1ro, picking the AWPer 13 times less than his younger teammate.

- Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş was lowered from $242K to $220K, yet less than 3% of players decided to go for the Turk due to the donk hype.

Prizes

- The prizes for the game, other than season points, are:

1. Hydra Gloves | Rattler (Field-Tested)
2. Hydra Gloves | Mangrove (Field-Tested)
3. Driver Gloves | Racing Green (Field-Tested)

IEM Katowice 2024 Group Stage

Format

- You can create your teams on the Fantasy page, here.

- The game only features the eight teams that were invited directly to the group stage according to ESL's World Ranking. The remaining eight teams will be added to the game as they qualify from the Play-in. Expect the last to be added at approximately 22:00 on Friday, about 15 hours before the next stage begins. But be careful to not be left out without the team! You can make a provisional team now and reconsider your choices later.

Teams

Vitality
FaZe
Natus Vincere
MOUZ
Play-in
Play-in
Play-in
Play-in

G2
Complexity
Monte
Falcons
Play-in
Play-in
Play-in
Play-in