ESL confirm IEM Cologne invites

10-6-2024 19:30

Eight teams have received direct invites to the main event, whilst a further 16 will battle their way through the Play-In.

ESL has confirmed the invites for IEM Cologne 2024 ahead of the next edition of their premier summer tournament. The event will host a total of 24 teams, who will battle it out for a $1,000,000 prize pool from August 7-18.

In a similar fashion to the previous two editions of IEM Cologne, the 2024 rendition will also use a Play-In 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 2024. MOUZ secured their spot after winning ESL Pro League S19, while FaZe and Spirit were extended an invite due to their respective wins in Chengdu and Katowice. G2 also received an invite after their recent IEM Dallas victory, where they lifted the trophy with substitute Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip.

G2 secure IEM Cologne berth with Dallas victory

Joining them in the group stage are Vitality, Natus Vincere, Astralis, and Virtus.pro, who skip the Play-In due to their ESL Ranking.

All but one Play-In spot has also been decided, with the final one going to the winner of a German open qualifier set to start on June 11. The rest of the Play-In invite list features recent breakout teams in The MongolZ and 9z, as well as several regular tier-one event attendees such as HEROIC, Liquid, and home-town favorites BIG.

Complexity are set to be the sole North American roster competing at the German event. At the same time, South America will have Imperial, FURIA, MIBR, and paiN representing the continent alongside the aforementioned 9z.

The full IEM Cologne invite list is as follows:

Main event:

Play-In:

German qualifier

undeserved

2024-06-10 19:31

13 replies

What do you mean?

2024-06-10 19:34

12 replies

Ez for faze

2024-06-10 19:40

we needed BIG invite to main stage, how are they gonna qualify on their own.

2024-06-10 22:18

10 replies

Just reject the visas from some teams qualifying for the main stage and boom, they are in!

2024-06-10 23:17

9 replies

sadly us germans are very bad at rejecting visas...

2024-06-10 23:21

8 replies

+1 :'(

2024-06-10 23:39

Rejecting visas? You don’t even bother with them at all. Free entrance for all xD But based on last weekend’s election you don’t seem to mind…

2024-06-11 05:26

4 replies

Propaganda works well in Germany. And I doubt the counting anyways. Why do they put lead pencils in the voting booth? And the software to consolidate the votes is super insecure and open to manipulation (not even e2e encrypted and they leaked the superadmin password in a public download software manual lol). Every script kiddie can manipulate the numbers that are being transferred to the next higher office. It's all intentional. ;)

2024-06-11 13:41

1 reply

I like how Germans want to do something about it (migration and crazy EU green deal etc.) so they vote “opposition” to Scholz, but they mostly vote CDU which is the same party which started all this bs in 2015 with mutti Merkel and CDU is also party of progressive fanatic von der Leyen which rules European Commission lmao. Honestly God with you, I am really sad where is Europe heading, I will somehow go through my life, but I feel really bad for the next generations and especially for my future kids if I one day decide with my partner to bring them to this “brave new world”.

2024-06-11 23:25

based

2024-06-11 14:11

maybe this will change soon. afd coming for all you foreigners...... those fuckin cunts

2024-06-12 07:27

thats funny :D

2024-06-11 12:32

funny, but sadly also sad at the same time

2024-06-11 23:14

5 sa teams, lets gooo

5 mid teams xd SA just needs 1 big org, that can buy all the best players into 1 team

2024-06-10 21:53

7 replies

crazy buyouts, just killing our opportunities, gg

2024-06-10 21:57

2 replies

also players killing others chances like fallen if he moves away from the awp role people will see how dogshit he is. he is literally statpadding with the awp. he's just too old at this point. he's never gonna beat any t1 awper.

2024-06-11 08:42

+1, he could go to rifle and be a solid support player. but he will not. or just make the transition to coach, that will be the big step for br cs comeback. he will be a fucking good coach, for sure

2024-06-11 13:55

Honestly, the EU/NA invited teams are quite mid too. Heroic, BIG, Saw, BetBoom... FALCONS(???? Col's also a make or break team so u could add them to that list

2024-06-11 04:24

3 replies

Which teams would be better?

2024-06-11 09:41

i said they are kinda mid not that they are bad. The list seems pretty balanced. Even tho Falcons is pretty overrated

2024-06-11 15:17

+1, Pain, Mibr, and 9z can win any of this teams.

2024-06-11 13:56

EZ4NAVI

ez early exit for navi

2024-06-10 20:04

Pfffffft, how much ?

2024-06-10 21:16

How much early exit? There is pretty huge potential for last place finish.

2024-06-11 05:28

how much early exit? very very much early

2024-06-11 14:02

deserved

lol furia

2024-06-10 19:32

RIP NiP

I hope every year that NIP will finally be back in Cologne and it never happens

2024-06-10 19:51

2024-06-10 20:08

HSV AND NiP fan?! Bruh you love to suffer or what went wrong in your life? :(

2024-06-10 20:36

YES TY :D and BIG too

2024-06-10 20:49

bro loves to suffer

2024-06-10 23:14

Right when they look good again :(

2024-06-10 20:17

Kind of used to seeing them not attending those S-tier events. Sad. But if they keep up their performance, the second half of the season could be brighter.

2024-06-11 01:32

This year's Cologne play-in gotta be the most diverse in who knows how long, 9 out of 16 teams are non-EU :v

personally im all for it

2024-06-10 19:42

good to get rid of the trash before the real teams play

2024-06-10 19:43

makes absolutely no difference

2024-06-10 19:59

I wish C9 would hurry up and sign a team so they can return to competing.

They have HeavyGod but the other two are still unconfirmed, just refusing to announce for whatever reason :v

2024-06-10 19:44

they should add belchonok

2024-06-10 20:10

Best tournament

I Agree

I Agree aswell

2024-06-10 20:13

EZ 4 MONGOLZ

2024-06-10 19:33

I agree, I’m happy that Mongolz beating all top 10 teams one by one.

2024-06-11 07:36

-furia +m80

2024-06-10 19:35

Sad M80 always seems to miss out.

2024-06-10 19:37

gotta grind the ranks

2024-06-10 19:56

ranks are meaningless, brazilians never win anything

2024-06-10 22:02

They won in Melbourne tbf

2024-06-10 23:35

+1 Would be nice for the Germans on M80

M80 cant beat NRG LUL XD shit team

2024-06-10 20:35

They farm every NA competition there is and keep up pretty good in EPL so just because they lost one game to NRG doesn't mean anything

if Navi were in play-ins they wouldn’t make it

2024-06-10 19:41

Howcome ?

2024-06-10 21:17

i am glad spirit lose here

Playins so shit.

2024-06-10 19:45

German QF? Who is supposed to play?

2024-06-10 19:47

alternate attax are probably the biggest favorite?

2024-06-10 19:53

5 replies

Sangal actually

2024-06-10 21:18

How would they be eligible without a single German player?

2024-06-10 22:28

With 2 german standins in the local qualis, i think Sprout did it before and it worked for them

2024-06-10 22:36

Wouldn't they need 3? Wait so you think/have info that they're actually gonna try that? They're not even signed up yet.

2024-06-10 22:38

Ah yes, Sprout had slackz back then and he was german, now i remember, indeed they had 3 germans in the team

2024-06-10 22:40

It's says OQ - open qualifier

2024-06-10 19:54

when did they change the names from play-in and group stage to stage 1 and 2?

2024-06-10 19:58

ence ://////////////

Do they invite for EU and ASIA ranking first and then do world rankings? Why? Shouldnt it be the other way around? Now it doesnt matter if mongolz is ranked 100 or 5 so long as they are #1 in asia and there basically nothing any other team can do to make it from that region. Just 1 example but I think thats a dumb way of doing it

Only Imperial has chances to reach main event

2024-06-10 20:00

SA power 💪🏻

sAw in the play-in for the first time, let's go!

2024-06-10 20:20

If they keep playing like they are at the moment... This will also be their last...

2024-06-11 11:23

sad nip better than 90% of these teams

2024-06-10 20:24

M80 with german qualifier with standin plz 💪

9z, saw, mibr XDD

2024-06-10 20:33

Why are the 'big' qualifiers gone? First the major and now this? Are we forgetting our roots? :((

2024-06-10 20:34

Qualifiers for this have been gone for a while. Cologne and kato have always had 23 teams invited for the past couple years, with one local qualifier.

2024-06-10 20:38

Really? I missed that completly, thanks for the info homie

2024-06-10 21:14

yeah it used to be based on a pro tour which gave points for each event, then it became just based on ESL world ranking and now it's a mix of winning top events and esl ranking. Stupidly done though cause they give out the regional invites and then the normal invites. Meaning Mongolz, despite being ranked higher than some of the ranking invites, is the only asian team

2024-06-10 21:36

Yeah, it feels forced aswell, what about all these EU/CIS mix teams (and others ofcourse) that otherwise always end there? They fought for their chance, not some business agreement

2024-06-10 22:22

It will be interesting tournament, can't wait ★

2024-06-10 20:42

one of the biggests events in cs history and except invites and few teams in play-in you have tier 3 level

2024-06-10 20:52

No qualifiers = lame

2024-06-10 21:11

This is the 4th year running that Cologne and Kato have been like this...

2024-06-10 22:24

where is fnatic

So they Replace the ESL Meisterschaft Spot, which they shut down with every National Championship, because they said they want more Borderless and Pan-National approach, with an German Qualifier? Yeah okay ESL.. whatever. Qual is cheaper then National Cups/Championships i guess.

2024-06-10 21:22

They shut down all the national championships, regardless of what the true reason was, but still wanted to keep the local spot for Kato and Cologne, just like they have the Local Hero invite/qualifier for all other ESL Masters and Challenger tournaments. Solution: local open qualifier. Reasonable enough I think, no?

2024-06-10 22:32

I believe that local qualifier should has a closed qualifier, like normal continental qualifying. Metizport's failure of qualifying to Jonkoping (lost a BO1 semifinal) had made so many people crying that it's unfair.

2024-06-11 05:07

Proud of seeing 9z there!

2024-06-10 21:35

Too many brazil teams. I feel like Nip or fnatic should have been invited.

2024-06-10 21:40

The problem with Brazilian teams is that you can count on them to NEVER win anything. So inviting them is basically a waste of a spot since they have no upset potential. Now we have not only 1 wasted spot but 4. Should've invited some NA or Asia teams.

2024-06-10 22:01

the Brazilian teams were not invited, they qualified, if at RMR Américas the NA teams were not completely swept, perhaps there would have been a team present here

2024-06-10 23:36

My point is BR teams can only farm trash NA teams, but can never actually win anything that matters. They don't have any upset potential.

2024-06-11 01:59

and I say the same about teams from Asia or NA, where YOU wanted them to be invited

2024-06-11 03:01

Bahahahaha more SA than NA teams ! x'D

2024-06-10 21:44

#87

Lets gooo

2024-06-10 22:21

Invites look STACKED

2024-06-10 22:35

EZ for BIG CLAN

2024-06-10 22:39

"[...] home-town favorites BIG." -> choose one

First of all MIBR and SAW will be rejected VISA so M80 and 3D max will be there yoho

2024-06-10 23:33

SAW is part of the EU. So there are no VISA issues

2024-06-12 12:42

Yes but they are from iberian region which is inferior to central elite countries so yea

2024-06-12 13:03

saW to fixing t2 games against RUSHB to this :DDD

Falcons will fail play ins naturally

2024-06-10 23:46

Wtf are these invites ????? Mibr? Imperial? SAW??????? Falcons? BIG? Furia? But not NiP (#14 in the world)?? Wtf is this

2024-06-10 23:47

17 replies

All of those teams are ranked higher than NiP xd Your point?

2024-06-11 00:30

Look at the valve ranking

2024-06-11 08:17

My point still remains? All teams are ranked higher than nip, hence the invite.

2024-06-11 12:06

11 replies

None of them are though … so what are u on about ? NiP #14 Tell me one of these teams that are higher than that

2024-06-11 14:34

if NiP was ranked higher than any of those teams they would have been invited. Use your brain, it is not that hard.

2024-06-11 15:19

Nice way of avoiding fact and my question…

2024-06-11 15:50

I already told you that all teams invited to cologne are ranked higher than nip?

2024-06-11 16:07

Then go and check the rankings again or visit an optician haha

2024-06-11 16:11

6 replies

Do you understand how cologne works? All the teams ranked 23 and higher were invited, and the last spot is via german qualifier. Nip is NOT top23 hence why they were not invited. Makes sense now?

2024-06-11 16:13

But SAW (ranked 29th) got invited.

2024-06-11 16:15

Bro, SAW is ranked 23. What are you on about? They received the last invite. Be serious

2024-06-11 19:31

Go check the ranking .................. bye

2024-06-11 20:36

Obviously you are completely wrong. NIP is ranked 28th according to the official ESL RANKING - not the HLTV ranking PS: visit an optician

2024-06-12 12:40

Bro they invite according to esl tanking not the heychultv ranking

2024-06-12 13:05

If you would take 20s to click the link to the tweet or the tournament page you would see the invites are based on the ESL rankings, so that's why a team that had only one decent result in the last months like Nip isn't there

2024-06-11 06:15

and the ones I mentioned above has ANY decent results at all u mean?

Better than Nip, yes, starting with the last major that the only one that didn't reach top 16 was Mibr who recently won an ESL challenger

2024-06-11 15:37

Astralis skipping the play in for the first time in fuck knows how long lets go

2024-06-10 23:54

no fnatic no NIP no Cloud9 no ENCE while we have falcons, BIG and SAW??? cs2 is getting worse and worse

2024-06-11 00:54

Does Cloud 9 have a team?

2024-06-11 09:35

Time to come from the past to get into the present

2024-06-12 12:35

why German qualifier, when BIG is already there?

2024-06-11 01:03

BIG is qualified through its ranking. If they wouldn't have qualified that way they would have had to go through that qualifier.

2024-06-11 09:37

VAMOS 9Z!!!!

2024-06-11 04:07

Unfortunate for M80 and the two German boys, It's just so hard to get invites in NA when BR has so many more tournaments.

2024-06-11 04:48

VP LMAO

2024-06-11 05:15

GO GO 9Z

2024-06-11 05:30

Cologne >>>>>> Major for like almost 10 years straight now. Just look at that roster...almost every single currently active Crack-Level-Player is playing in this fucking event, everyone will be at their peaks. THIS IS COUNTER-STRIKE.

2024-06-11 05:36

True

2024-06-11 08:37

For Major every team has a chance to go deep as all of them participate. But some of the "top teams" don't get through some of the stages and some "outsiders" make it (taking the spots of the "top teams). While on the other hand Cologne uses the rankings to invite teams so no possibility for underdogs (like let's say M80) to upset. So in my opinion the Major is still the better tournament as it gives the chance to everyone.

2024-06-11 09:40

cologne is always hype

2024-06-11 11:39

which teams are playing in the german qualifier?

2024-06-11 08:19

That's a good question. Last year it was this massive qualifier: hltv.org/events/7215/esl-meisterschaft-s.. with BIG's academy team winning. Afterwards they used the main team in the Play In and got promptly knocked out with 2 losses: hltv.org/events/6812/iem-cologne-2023-pl..

2024-06-11 12:16

No ence :(

2024-06-11 09:06

Five SA teams, just 9z will win a match.

2024-06-11 11:24

I wish I was going again this year :(

2024-06-11 21:26

The only tragic part of this is lekr0 and Kenny are missing, just imagine this event if lekr0 and kennyS were there in some squads , it would be tear-dropping.

2024-06-15 01:32