Intel Extreme Masters Season IX was the ninth season of Intel Extreme Masters competitions organized by Electronic Sports League, and took place between July 2014 and March 2015. The season included five stops in different cities around the world acting as qualifiers before culminating in the World Championship in

Katowice Katowice ( , , ; szl, Katowicy; german: Kattowitz, yi, קאַטעוויץ, Kattevitz) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Upper Silesian metropolitan area. It is the 11th most popul ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. The featured games were '' League of Legends'' by

Riot Games Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on t ...

and '' StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm'', as well as one competition of '' Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft'', both by Blizzard Entertainment.

Shenzhen

Intel Extreme Masters Shenzhen was the opening event of Season IX, and took place between July 16–20 at the Shenzhen Cartoon and Animation Festival in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The event featured three games: '' StarCraft II'', '' League of Legends'', and '' Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft'' in its sole Intel Extreme Masters appearance of the season. The prize pools consisted of US$25,000, US$5,000 and US$10,000 respectively, as well as 4,000 ''StarCraft II'' World Championship Series (WCS) points spread among the participants based on their placing.