Visualizar Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2019

General information

ESL will be holding Intel Extreme Masters Major Katowice 2019 from 13 February to 3 March. As well as the other Major competition, this tournament will be held in three stages: The New Challengers Stage, The New Legends Stage and The New Champions Stage. The first stage will be taking place from 13 to 20 February at ESL Arena, while the second one will be held from 20 till 24 February at Int. Congress Centre, while The Champions Stage will be happening from 28 February to 3 March at Spodek Arena.

Analysis of participants

Favorites

Astralis — win coefficient: 2.90(place in the HLTV rating — #1)

Astralis is the best CS:GO team of all the teams the world has ever known. We cannot doubt their success at the upcoming Major tournament. In 2018 they proved that they were the best in their field again and again. At the last tournament, iBUYPOWER Masters IV they didn’t become champions but they achieved a quite worthy result. Having no chance to win over Team Liquid at the final, the Danish took the second position in the tournament bracket. Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2019 is a very important championship, where Astralis will definitely get the victory. We are sure that they are getting prepared for it actively, so we are confident in their win. Gla1ve together with his team is the main favorite to win according to all the bookmakers and many spectators.

Astralis roster and the players’ rating:

Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz — 1.17Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen — 1.13Andreas ‘Xyp9x’ Hojsleth — 1.12Lukas ‘gla1ve’ Rossander — 1.11Emil ‘Megisk’ Reif — 1.16Danny ‘zonic’ Sorensen — coach

Team Liquid — win coefficient: 5.25(place in the HLTV rating — #2)

Liquid is the second strongest team in the world after Astralis. Recently the Americans proved that they are one of the best. As it has been said before, at iBUYPOWER Masters IV they managed to win over their ‘sworn enemies’ at the final of the major event. Before that they had got to the grand final against Astralis four times but they never could win, but the last championship changed everything. It proves that Stewie2K’s transfer only strengthened the team and his exchange for TACO only benefited the collective. We think that the likelihood of this collective getting to the final is rather high and Team Liquid have very good chances to win the Major tournament in general. They are in a good play shape and if they are getting prepared for the upcoming event, they will surely get to the playoff and final. As a reminder, Liquid is represented by one of the best individual players on the whole CS:GO stage.

Team Liquid roster and the players’ rating:

Nicholas ‘nitr0’ Cannella — 1.09Jonathan ‘EliGE’ Jablonowski — 1.15Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken — 1.15Keith ‘NAF’ Markovic — 1.21Jacky ‘Stewie2K’ Yip — 1.07Eric ‘adreN’ Hoag — coach

Natus Vincere — win coefficient: 7.50(place in the HLTV rating — #3)

Natus Vincere are not having good times as their fans would like. The last tournament they participated in happened last year in the middle of December. Then at BLAST Pro Series Lisbon 2018 Na’Vi took the second place. The CIS team didn’t get an invitation to iBUYPOWER Masters IV and that’s why Liquid managed to win over the yellow-black in the HLTV rating, getting to the second position. Zeus repeated many times that in 2019 he was going to end up his career of a professional player and it will definitely influence the moral of the team at the upcoming matches. We are going to find out how it will affect the team’s results, but we suppose that it will be negative but not positive. We think that the chance of Na’Vi passing to the Top 8 is rather good. If they get to the playoff, they are likely to end up their participation at the quarterfinal, but despite the mentioned, we doubt their getting to eight best.

Natus Vincere roster and the players’ rating:

Ioann ‘Edward’ Sukhariev — 0.85Egor ‘flamie’ Vasilyev — 0.98Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev — 1.26Danylo ‘Zeus’ Teslenko — 0.79Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov — 1.06Mykhailo ‘kane’ Blagin — coach

FaZe Clan — win coefficient: 8.50(place in the HLTV rating — #4)

FaZe Clan hasn’t been able to find the constant fifth player for some time. In this case their attempt to create a sole team was made with a Kazakh esportsman, Dauren ‘AdreN’ Kystaubayev. At the first championship where FaZe Clan participated in, the Europeans lost, but at ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019 they took the first place defeating all their opponents. This result is very good and the results of the Major tournament will clarify if the Kazakh will stay in the European collective or leave the team. We think that this team has a good chance to get to the playoff and to win the championship. Of course, it can only happen if the players have prepared well and found new good strategies and also a map pool. We want to remind that recently Janko ‘YNk’ Paunovic, ex-mentor of MIBR, has joined the team as a coach. He is able to help to achieve good results tremendously.

FaZe Clan roster and the players’ rating:

Havard ‘rain’ Nygaard — 0.94Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac — 1.12Ladislav ‘GuardiaN’ Kovacs — 1.01Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer — 1.01Dauren ‘AdreN’ Kystaubayev — 1.03Janko ‘YNk’ Paunovic — coach

MIBR — win coefficient: 9(place in the HLTV rating — #8)

At the end of the last year MIBR made a change in their roster. They exchanged Stewie2K for TACO and signed felps, putting tarik to the reserve. The renewed roster hasn’t played at any tournament, so it is rather difficult to find out what their shape is. Nevertheless, MIBR hold the sixth position in the HLTV rating and this fact means that the Brazilians are still one of the best CS:GO teams in the world. That is why we think that they can enter Eight Best and the debut of the renewed roster must be smooth.

MIBR roster and the players’ rating:

Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo — 1.15Fernando ‘fer’ Alvarenga — 1.05Marcelo ‘coldzera’ David — 1.15Epitacio ‘TACO’ de Melo — 1.00Joao ‘felps’ Vasconcellos — 1.22Wilton ‘zews’ Prado — coach

Teams that have a chance to make it to Top 8

BIG — win coefficient: 13(place in the HLTV rating — #15)

According to the bookmakers, BIG have rather good chances to get to Top 8 participants in the Major tournament. We don’t really agree with this opinion due to several reasons. Firstly, the last tournament the German participated in was WePlay! Lock’n’Load and there BIG took the 3-4 place. The result couldn’t be recognized as bad, but this performance is not successful either. BIG lost against the team HellRaisers, that could win as well. Secondly, on 1 February one of the key players and the audience’s favorite Owen ‘smooya’ Butterfield left the team. His place was taken by Johannes ‘nex’ Maget, that used to have a status of an inactive player. Should we say that lack of practice of the esportsman will affect the result of the team negatively at the upcoming Major tournament?

We also want to remind that since the moment XANTARES was signed only three weeks passed and it can be not enough to get the team into a good play shape.

BIG roster and the players’ rating:

Fatih ‘gob b’ Dayik — 0.85Johannes ‘tabseN’ Wodarz — 1.15Johannes ‘nex’ Maget — 1.03Tizian ‘tiziaN’ Feldbusch — 0.91Ismailcan ‘XANTARES’ Dortkardes — 1.18Alexander ‘kakafu’ Szymanczyk — coach

NRG Esports — win coefficient: 21(place in the HLTV rating — #6)

NRG Esports collected their roster at the beginning of the last year and it hasn’t been changed since then. It means that the players get along well with each other. We want to remind you that at Americas Minor Championship — IEM Katowice 2019 they took the first place. This fact says about the good shape of NRG Esports. We think that daps and his teammates have a good chance to get to the playoff, but they will have to do their best as only the best are playing at the Major championship.

NRG Esports roster and the players’ rating:

Jacob ‘FugLy’ Medina — 1.02Damian ‘daps’ Steele — 0.90Vincent ‘Brehze’ Cayonte — 1.20Cvetelin ‘CeRq’ Dimitrov — 1.18Ethan ‘nahtE’ Arnold — 1.20Chet ‘ImAPet’ Singh — coach

Fnatic — win coefficient: 21(place in the HLTV rating — #5)

After twist’s return to the team in October last year, the collective took the 3-4 place at IEM XIII — Chicago, the first place at PLG Grand Slam 2018 and the 3-4 place at iBUYPOWER Masters IV. Their bad results: the 7 place at Esports Championship Series Season 6 Europe and the 13 place at ESL Pro League Season 8 Europe. We can easily see that they have different results and they can lose against not very strong teams and win over rather strong opponents. This factor can be benefiting for Fnatic, but also destructive. So, the team can surprise us a lot. We think that they have a chance to get to The New Champions Stage, but they will have to show something unusual for that. Before the events of the previous Major tournament, Fnatic always got to the Eight Best and even to Four Best, but at FACEIT Major something went wrong and they took the 9-11 place. It would be interesting to see the Swedish in Top Eight.

Fnatic roster and the players’ rating:

Freddy ‘KRIMZ’ Johansson — 1.20Jesper ‘JW’ Wecksell — 1.06Richard ‘Xit’ Landstrom — 1.00Simon ‘twist’ Eliasson — 1.04Ludvig ‘Brollan’ Brolin — 1.13Jimmy ‘Jumpy’ Berndtsson — coach

HellRaisers — win coefficient: 21(place in the HLTV rating — #18)

HellRaisers have a status of “dark horses”. They are not the favorites of the competition for sure, but thanks to that they are able to win over several opponents, including a couple of serious teams. It happened at the last Major tournament and in the end HR made it to Eight Best and got an invitation to the championship to The New Legends Stage immediately. After Hobbit’s joining the team, it’s difficult to say that the collective played in a new way and their results got better. Nevertheless, if the team has a friendly environment and the roster is getting prepared for the first Major championship in 2019 actively, HellRaisers will be able to repeat their result from the last year. But they need a little luck and to apply energies as at the tournament of such a level all the teams will be fighting to the bitter end. Also we should not forget that a new coach, Amiran ‘ami’ Rekhviashvili joined the team at the end of the last year. We can make a conclusion about his efficiency pretty soon.

HellRaisers roster and the players’ rating:

Kirill ‘ANGE1’ Karasiow — 1.03Bence ‘DeadFox’ Borocz — 0.88Ozgur ‘woxic’ Eker — 1.19Issa ‘ISSAA’ Murad — 1.13Abay ‘Hobbit’ Khasenov — 1.14Amiran ‘ami’ Rekhviashvili — coach

Ninjas in Pyjamas — win coefficient: 27(place in the HLTV rating — #10)

Ninjas in Pyjamas is one more team that is quite unpredictable. In our opinion, NiP have a status of “dark horses”. We shouldn’t expect anything big from them, but the Swedish can become successful and get to Top Eight. Nevertheless, likelihood of this result is too low as the collective is a little stuck. The last tournament for the Swedish was BLAST Pro Series Lisbon 2018. The collective couldn’t achieve anything great and got the sixth place of six possible ones. Perhaps the reason of this result is that NiP are always invited to the tournaments of the BLAST series, Lekr0 together with his team didn’t treat the tournament seriously and that’s why they hadn’t got prepared properly and lost. We think that they will approach the tournament being ready, but in spite of that, they are unlikely to get to Top Eight.

Ninjas in Pyjamas roster and the players’ rating:

Patrik ‘f0rest’ Lindberg — 1.08Christopher ‘GeT_RiGhT’ Alesund — 1.04Fredrik ‘REZ’ Sterner — 1.15Dennis ‘dennis’ Edman — 1.09Jonas ‘Lekr0’ Olofsson — 1.01Faruk ‘pita’ Pita — coach

ENCE eSports — win coefficient: 27(place in the HLTV rating — #12)

During the last several months ENCE eSports showed good results and their progress was noticeable for everybody. Now ENCE is the strongest team in Finland that holds the 12 place in the HLTV rating. We suppose that Allu and his team will be able to achieve a lot. Recently they have got the first place at the European minor, and also Assembly Winter 2019. ENCE are likely to get to The New Legends Stage and they have a chance to get to a chance to get to the final stage. At the last Major tournament in the playoff the teams that hadn’t been expected to pass did it indeed. It means that ENCE have an opportunity to obtain a status of Legend thanks to their taken the 5-8 place.

ENCE eSports roster and the players’ rating:

Aleksi ‘allu’ Jalli — 1.21Aleksi ‘Aleksib’ Virolainen — 1.06Jere ‘sergej’ Salo — 1.26Jani ‘Aerial’ Jussila — 1.19Sami ‘xseveN’ Laasanen — 1.07Slaava ‘Twista’ Rasanen — coach

Collectives that can surprise

Cloud9 — win coefficient: 34(place in the HLTV rating — #7)

Cloud9 are having a difficult situation. The organization has been looking for an optimal solution for a long time. The last attempt that the managers made was taking an ex-representative of Swole Patrol on probation as the fifth player. This decision was fruitful and it is proven by the fact that at ELEAGUE CS:GO Invitational 2019 Cloud9 almost got the win, but they ended up their participation on the second position of the tournament bracket. After that C9 were not noticed anywhere, but taking this fact into account, we think that Cloud9 can surprise us a lot.

Cloud9 roster and the players’ rating:

Timothy ‘autimatic’ Ta — 1.07Will ‘RUSH’ Wierzba — 0.92Robin ‘flusha’ Ronnquist — 1.08Fabien ‘kioShiMa’ Fiey — 1.04Jordan ‘Zellsis’ Montemurro — 1.09Soham ‘valens’ Chowdhury — coach

Team Vitality — win coefficient: 34(place in the HLTV rating — #14)

Team Vitality seem to be in a good play shape. On 3 February, they managed to succeed at WePlay! Lock’n’Load, winning over one more participant at the Major tournament, the team HellRaisers. The French team got the win over DreamHack almost immediately after their collecting and started their way to the top of esports. They needed three months and a half to take the 14 place in the HLTV rating. This result is excellent for Vitality and we think that they will make it to The New Legends Stage, but here their success is more likely to get over.

Team Vitality roster and the players’ rating:

Nathan ‘NBK-’ Schmitt — 1.08Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire — 1.15Cedric ‘RpK’ Guipouy — 1.03Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut — 1.44Alex ‘ALEX’ McMeekin — 1.01Remy ‘XTQZZZ’ Quioniam — coach

G2 Esports — win coefficient: 57(place in the HLTV rating — #17)

At the end of last year G2 Esports managed to take the second place at PLG Grand Slam 2018 and to become the winners of WESG 2018 North-West Europe, providing themselves with a trip to WESG 2018 World Finals. These results are good, but we should take into account that the collectives that performed at the mentioned competitions do not make out to the level of some teams from The New Challengers Stage. Due to that, the way of G2 Esports at The New Legends Stage will be difficult. The French can get to the next stage, but it will be troublesome. As for the playoff stage, G2 are unlikely to get there but will take the 9-11 place.

G2 Esports roster and the players’ rating:

Richard ‘shox’ Papillon — 1.05Alexandre ‘bodyy’ Pianaro — 1.02Kenny ‘kennyS’ Schrub — 1.11Lucas ‘Lucky’ Chastang — 1.21Audric ‘JaCkz’ Jug — 1.13Damien ‘maLeK’ Marcel — coach

compLexity Gaming — win coefficient: 75(place in the HLTV rating — #38)

The way the players from compLexity Gaming managed to get to Eight Best at the previous Major tournament still surprises the fans. But we know one thing for sure: compLexity will not be able to repeat the result from the last year. On 29 December, they had a change in their roster. ANDROID was exchanged by the Australian esportsman, Rickeh. Taking into account the amount of practice with this player and the level of coL’s individual performance, we are sure that compLexity will fail. At The New Legends Stage they got a slot to at FACEIT Major, they will face a lot of dangerous opponents that will not miss the unexperienced coL.

compLexity Gaming roster and the players’ rating:

Rory ‘dephh’ Jackson — 0.97Peter ‘stanislaw’ Jarguz — 1.00Shahzeeb ‘ShahZaM’ Khan — 1.00Ricardo ‘Rickeh’ Mulholland — 0.88Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert (substitute player) — 1.02

Renegades — win coefficient: 75(place in the HLTV rating — #13)

On 26 January, at the Asian division, the Minor tournament dedicated to IEM Katowice Major 2019 was over. There Renegades got a confident win and got their invite to the upcoming event. Thanks to their good performance, Renegades cemented their title of the strongest team in Australia and got placed on the thirteenth position in the HLTV rating. They have a good opportunity to get to the next stage. If the Australians made a push to get prepared for the upcoming tournament, they will be able to make it to the playoff in certain circumstances.

Renegades roster and the players’ rating:

Aaron ‘AZR’ Ward — 1.09Justin ‘jks’ Savage — 1.15Joakim ‘jkaem’ Myrbostad — 1.19Jay ‘liazz’ Tregillgas — 1.01Sean ‘Gratisfaction’ Kaiwai — 1.09Aleksandar ‘kassad’ Trifunovic — coach

AVANGAR — win coefficient: 101(place in the HLTV rating — #22)

AVANGAR is one of the strongest CIS teams. Last year they managed to get a win at many minor tournaments with small prizes, but at the Major competition they will be expected by more dangerous opponents. On 20 January, the CIS minor was over. There they got placed on the first position and got the main prize — $30,000 and an invite to IEM Katowice Major 2019. Good performance of AVANGAR made their fans hope and we think that the matches of the Kazakh will be interesting to watch.

AVANGAR roster and the players’ rating:

Timur ‘buster’ Tulepov — 1.14Aidyn ‘KrizzeN’ Turlybekov — 1.00Alexey ‘qikert’ Golubev — 1.14Ali ‘Jame’ Djami — 1.30Bektiyar ‘fitch’ Bahytov — 1.10Dastan ‘dastan’ Akbaev — coach

Outsiders

TYLOO — win coefficient: 151(place in the HLTV rating — #29)

According to many bookmakers, TYLOO are one of the outsiders of this championship. We agree with them due to the reason that on 1 January the Chinese organization reported that they had leased two players from Flash, that, by the way, had already performed under the tag TYLOO. The decision is undoubtedly good especially in this situation but the new coming AttackeR and Summer are not likely to improve the situation in the collective. Since the moment of their arrival one month has passed and we are sure that this time was not enough to get prepared for the major in a proper way.In our opinion, TYLOO will be one of the first to leave the championship.

TYLOO roster and the players’ rating

HaoWen ‘somebody’ Xu — 1.13Hansel ‘BnTeT’ Ferdinand — 1.09Kevin ‘xccurate’ Susanto — 1.05YuLun ‘Summer’ Cai (leased from Flash Gaming) — 1.13YuanZhang ‘AttackeR’ Sheng (leased from Flash Gaming) — 1.07Ivan ‘Johnta’ SHevtsov — coach

Vega Squadron — win coefficient: 151(place in the HLTV rating — #50)

The last serious achievement of Vega Squadron was the second taken place at StarLadder i-League Season 6, that ended in the middle of October. After that Vega, taking part in minor championships were not able to show good results. If they were able to defeat weaker opponents, what will they show at IEM Katowice Major 2019? There is likelihood that the bad results at the minor championships were caused by the CIS teams didn’t have any motivation there and correspondingly they hadn’t prepared to them. But the odds that Vega Squadron will not be able to get to the next stage of the tournament are high and their play shape makes “blue sharks” one of the outsiders at IEM Katowice Major 2019.

Vega Squadron roster and the players’ rating:

Leonid ‘chopper’ Vishnyakov — 1.05Dmitriy ‘jR’ Chervak — 0.99Pavel ‘hutji’ Lashkov — 0.90Igor ‘crush’ Shevchenko — 0.88Anton ‘tonyblack’ Kolesnikov — 0.88Artem ‘Fierce’ Ivanov — coach

Grayhound Gaming — win coefficient: 151(place in the HLTV rating — #32)

Grayhound Gaming performed well at Asia Minor Championship, taking the second place there. Their efforts resulted in $15,000 and an invitation to the Major tournament. Before that moment they had shown bad results at such tournaments as PLG Grand Slam 2018 and ESEA Season 29 Global Challenge. In our opinion, the most interesting and remarkable thing about Grayhound’s getting to the Major is that the spectators are expecting for a funny sticker from the player with a nick DickStacy. We think that Grayhound deserve the title of outsiders of the tournament together with the other representatives of this category.

Grayhound Gaming roster and the players’ rating:

Erdenetsogt ‘erkaSt’ Gantulga — 1.22Chris ‘dexter’ Nong — 1.23Oliver ‘DickStacy’ Tierney — 0.99Liam ‘malta’ Schembri — 1.07Euan ‘sterling’ Moore — 1.12

Vici Gaming — win coefficient: 301(place in the HLTV rating — #39)

The fact that Vici Gaming have been qualified not with the Minor tournament but with the 3rd Place Play-In, says that the Chinese are not ready to join the professional stage and to compete with the representatives of the Tier-1 and Tier-2 yet. Vici Gaming were collected at the beginning of September last year and within the period of their existence they managed to get only the second place at WESG 2018 China Finals, the first place at ESL Pro League Season 8 China and the 13-16 place at ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals. In all the other cases, their results were bad or not significant. That is why we suppose that Vici Gaming will be one of the first to leave the competition.

Vici Gaming roster and the players’ rating:

Zhong ‘zhokiNg’ Weijie — 1.03Cheung ‘Freeman’ Wing Hei — 1.24Liu ‘aumaN’ Zhihong — 1.02Liang ‘advent’ Zhuo — 0.91Andrew ‘kaze’ Khong — 1.13

Team Spirit — win coefficient: 301(place in the HLTV rating — #20)

Despite the fact that the roster of Team Spirit was completed in January last year, Spirit were not able to achieve any success if we don’t take getting to the Major tournament into account. Their results in 2018 are limited by the second place at StarLadder & ImbaTV Invitational Chongqing 2018, ESEA Season 27: Global Challenge and CIS Minor Championship - London 2018. Besides, Team Spirit cannot boast about any achievement. We think that they will be able to perform at the tournament well only in the case if they have used all their time to get prepared and have thought up something extraordinary. Otherwise, they will be one of the first to leave the championship.

Team Spirit roster and players’ rating:

Pavel ‘COLDYY1’ Veklenko — 1.14Dmitry ‘S0tF1k’ Forostyanko — 0.94Vadim ‘DavCost’ Vasilyev — 1.09Dmitriy ‘Dima’ Bandurka — 1.04Victor ‘somedieyoung’ Orudzhev — 1.15Nikolay ‘Certus’ Poluyanov — coach

Winstrike Team — win coefficient: 301(place in the HLTV rating — #27)

All the history of Winstrike’s matches is mixed results since the moment of the CS:GO roster appearance. At the Minor championship the representatives of this tag didn’t perform successfully, taking the third place, but at 3rd Place Play-In they managed to take the first position and thanks to that they got an invitation to IEM Katowice Major 2019. Nevertheless, Winstrike look weak in comparison to their opponents. We want to support the opinion of bookmakers, so we think that Winstrike are one of the clearest outsiders of the championship and their performance will be limited by only three or five matches.

Winstrike roster and players’ rating:

Kirill ‘BoombI4’ Mikhailov — 1.06Aurimas ‘Kvik’ Kvakšys— 0.97David ‘n0rb3r7’ Danielyan — 1.11Georgi ‘WorldEdit’ Yaskin — 1.07Jan ‘wayLander’ Rahkonen — 0.93Dmitriy ‘iksou’ Mikhailichenko — coach

FURIA Esports — win coefficient: 301(place in the HLTV rating — #21)

FURIA Esports have become a kind of discovery at this championship. They have already managed to achieve a good result getting to the Major tournament. At the recently held WePlay! Lock’n’Load they performed better than some participants of the upcoming IEM Katowice Major 2019. Despite the status of the outsider the bookmakers gave to them, we are expecting for interesting matches from FURIA. The Brazilians had a good fight for their place at the Major championship and can show even more show, Nevertheless, their result are more likely to be unsatisfactory and in the end FURIA will be one of the first to end up their participation in IEM Katowice Major 2019.

Interesting fact: a famous footballer, Neymar, playing for Paris Saint-Germain, during holding of Americas Minor Championship said that he personally cheers for FURIA Esports and he was very glad to find out that they had got to IEM Katowice Major 2019. This footballer is also known for his support of MIBR and personal relationships with the representatives of this tag.

FURIA Esports roster and players’ rating:

Yuri ‘yuurih’ Gomes — 1.30Andrei ‘arT’ Piovezan — 1.12Vinicius ‘VINI’ Figueiredo — 1.10Kaike ‘kscerato’ Cerato — 1.23Rinaldo ‘AbleJ’ Moda — 1.00Nicholas ‘guerri’ Nogueira — coach