The IEM Katowice Play-in has been played out, and the final teams have made their way.

In our last newsletter, we mentioned that HEROIC looked good. That aged pretty poorly – they’re out of the event now. They got clobbered by BIG, winning six rounds across TWO MAPS. Sunpayus had a rough series himself, managing a blistering… 0.58 rating.

At least some of the other new teams did make it.

In the “We swear we’re NA” derby, Liquid put down Wildcard. Map 1 got tight, requiring OT, but map 2 was a 13-0 Anubis stomp from Liquid. When the players are all firing, this Liquid team makes for a pretty scary prospect. Maybe if they sign just one more lurker, they can win an event.

This game was set up by FURIA beating Wildcard. Thank the Lord for that.

If not for FURIA, this would be a rough Katowice to swallow for Brazillian fans. MIBR and paiN both got bounced out at the final hurdle. Both teams got handled 2-0, in MIBR’s case by a fresh-looking VP. As for paiN, they lost to Astralis, who haven't convinced us yet.

They won this game, but dav1deuS struggled, and for this paiN roster that’s a death sentence against “top” EU teams.

With the Play-ins over, we can get on with the kinds of things we love this esport for, like Astralis getting 2-0’d by Spirit. You know, quality content.

Ultimately, these were the teams that made it through to the main event:

1-4th 🇧🇷 FURIA
1-4th 🇹🇷 Eternal Fire
1-4th 🇪🇺 GamerLegion
1-4th 🇫🇷 3DMAX
5-8th 🇩🇰 Astralis
5-8th 🏳️ Liquid
5-8th 🇷🇺 Virtus.pro
5-8th 🇩🇪 BIG

Group play is already about halfway through, and one of the teams above is already out. But more on that further down.