Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Katowice Major 2019
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The Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Katowice Major 2019, also known as IEM Katowice Major 2019 or Katowice 2019, was the fourteenth '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' Major Championship and the world championship for the thirteenth season of the
Intel Extreme Masters The Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) is a series of international esports tournaments held in countries around the world. These Electronic Sports League (ESL) sanctioned events, sponsored by Intel, currently host events in ''Counter-Strike 2''. Oth ...
. It was held in
Katowice Katowice (, ) is the capital city of the Silesian Voivodeship in southern Poland and the central city of the Katowice urban area. As of 2021, Katowice has an official population of 286,960, and a resident population estimate of around 315,000. K ...
,
Silesian Voivodeship Silesian Voivodeship ( ) is an administrative province in southern Poland. With over 4.2 million residents and an area of 12,300 square kilometers, it is the second-most populous, and the most-densely populated and most-urbanized region of Poland ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
from February 13 – March 3, 2019. Fourteen teams would qualify for the IEM Katowice Major 2019 based on their top fourteen placements from the last Major, the FACEIT Major: London 2018, while another ten teams would qualify from their respective regional qualifiers. The top eight teams from the London Major ("Legends") received a bye to the second phase of the group stage while the other sixteen teams ("Challengers") had to go through the first and second group stages in order to reach the playoffs. It featured a prize pool, the seventh consecutive Major with that prize pool. It was hosted by ESL, their first Major since 2016. This event was the start of the second season of the Intel Grand Slam.
Astralis Astralis is a Danish esports organization. Best known for their ''Counter-Strike 2'' team, they also have teams representing other games, such as ''FIFA'' and ''Rainbow Six Siege.'' The parent group of Astralis is the Astralis Group, who prev ...
,
Team Liquid Team Liquid is a multi-regional professional esports organization based in the Netherlands that was founded in 2000. They signed their first professional players with the release of '' StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty''. In 2012, Team Liquid acq ...
,
MIBR Made in Brazil, commonly referred as abbreviated name MIBR (stylized as MiBR or mibr) is a professional esports organization with players competing in ''Counter-Strike 2,'' '' Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege'' and ''VALORANT''. It was a member o ...
,
Natus Vincere Natus Vincere (Latin for "born to win"), commonly referred as abbreviated name NAVI (formerly Na`Vi), is a Ukrainian esports organization based in Kyiv. Founded in 2009, the organization has teams and players competing in various games, such as ...
, and
FaZe Clan FaZe Clan, or simply FaZe, is a professional esports and entertainment brand. Founded on May 30, 2010, as FaZe Sniping, the organization has professional players and content creators from around the world, across multiple games. In October 20 ...
were incoming Legends who retained that status, while BIG, HellRaisers, and compLexity Gaming were knocked out in the New Legends stage. Renegades,
Ninjas in Pyjamas Ninjas in Pyjamas (often abbreviated to NIP and NiP) is a professional esports organisation based in Sweden that is best known for its '' Counter-Strike'' teams. In 2012, the team reformed with a '' Counter Strike: Global Offensive'' lineup upo ...
, and ENCE advanced to the playoff stage to become Legends for the following Major. The grand finals featured the world's number one team Astralis, which defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas and MIBR in the playoffs, and the underdog ENCE, which defeated the world's number two in Team Liquid and the world's number three in Natus Vincere. Astralis swept ENCE in two maps to take its third Major title and tie
Fnatic Fnatic (pronounced "fanatic"; also stylised as fnatic or FNATIC) is a professional esports organisation headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Founded on 23 July 2004, it has players from around the world competing in several games. Fnatic' ...
for most Majors titles. In addition, Astralis became just the third team after Fnatic and the Brazilian roster of Luminosity Gaming and SK Gaming to win consecutive Majors.


Background

''Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' (CS:GO) is a
multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...
first-person shooter A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre, video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a First person (video games), first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through t ...
video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and
Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...
. It is the fourth game in the ''Counter-Strike'' series. In professional CS:GO, the Valve-sponsored Majors are the most prestigious tournaments. The defending champions were
Astralis Astralis is a Danish esports organization. Best known for their ''Counter-Strike 2'' team, they also have teams representing other games, such as ''FIFA'' and ''Rainbow Six Siege.'' The parent group of Astralis is the Astralis Group, who prev ...
, after winning their second championship at the FACEIT Major: London 2018. At the time,
Fnatic Fnatic (pronounced "fanatic"; also stylised as fnatic or FNATIC) is a professional esports organisation headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Founded on 23 July 2004, it has players from around the world competing in several games. Fnatic' ...
had the most Major titles, with three.


Format

The Major cycle began with four Minors, or regional qualifiers: Americas, Asia, CIS, and Europe. Two teams from each qualifier moved on to the Major. In addition, because
Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...
reduced the number of direct Major invites from sixteen to fourteen, the third-place teams at each respective Minor advanced to a third-place qualifier to send two more teams to the Major. The Major featured twenty-four teams. The top eight teams from the FACEIT Major: London 2018 were the Legends, and the remaining sixteen teams—the teams that placed ninth through fourteenth at the FACEIT Major and the ten teams that advanced from the Minors—were known as Challengers. The Major was split into three stages. The first stage was the New Challengers stage, featuring all Challengers in a Swiss-system tournament: the top eight teams advanced to the next stage and the bottom eight teams were eliminated. The second stage is the New Legends stage, a second Swiss-system group stage. This stage featured the eight Legends from the London Major and the eight teams advancing from the New Challengers stage. Like the New Challengers stage, the New Legends stage also advanced the top eight teams and eliminated the bottom eight teams. All teams from this stage except the bottom two teams earned automatic invites to the following Major. The final stage was the New Champions stage, and teams that advanced to this stage received Legends status at the following Major. This stage featured an eight team, best-of-three, single elimination bracket. ESL announced changes for this Major in the New Challengers and the New Legends stages. Rather than only featuring best-of-threes in the fifth round of the group stages, ESL announced that any progression or elimination matches would feature a best-of-three series. Therefore, the high and low matches of round three and all matches in rounds four and five were best-of-three. ESL also made changes to the seeding protocol. Instead of having seeding determined by placement at the last Major and the Minors, each team in the Swiss-system stages ranked the other 15 teams in the stage; the rankings were then aggregated to create the final seeding for the first round of each Swiss-system stage. ESL also moved away from FACEIT's
Buchholz system The Buchholz system (also spelled Buchholtz) is a ranking or scoring system developed by Bruno Buchholz (died 1958) in 1932, for Swiss system tournaments. It was originally developed as an auxiliary scoring method, but more recently it has been u ...
and instead used an
Elo rating system The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American chess master and physics professor. The Elo system wa ...
. Teams were assigned Elo ratings that matched their seeding and the rating changed after every win or loss, with the winner taking some of the loser's points. Each team's Elo rating was used to determine all matchups after the first round, instead of the random draws of previous Majors.


Map Pool

The map pool remained the same as the previous Major.


Minors

Each regional qualifier, called "Minors", featured eight teams. Each Minor also had a 50,000 prize pool, with first place receiving 30,000, second place taking in 15,000, and third place raking in the last 5,000. Unlike past Minors, no teams was directly invited to the Minors. All Minors take place in Katowice to avoid visa issues, just like the FACEIT Major approach. Each Minor's format was similar to past Minors, but with a couple small changes. The group stages would be a GSL, double elimination format with each group featuring four teams. The opening matches would be a best of one. A new change came along with the winner's set being a best of three instead of the usual best of one. The loser's and decider's matches would also be best of three sets. The top two teams in each group would move on to a four team, best of three, double elimination bracket. The top two teams would move on to the Major. In addition, the Minor finals that used to determine seeding would be eliminated; instead, the winner of the winner's match would be the first seed going into the New Challengers stage and the winner of the loser's match would be the second seed.


CIS Minor

The CIS Minor qualifier featured sixteen teams. Winstrike Team was automatically invited based on its top sixteen placement at the FACEIT Major and another seven teams were invited. Eight more teams qualified through four online qualifiers. The qualifier will have a sixteen team, double elimination bracket and teams will play until eight teams qualified CIS Minor. The CIS Minor took place from January 16 to 20, 2019.


Europe Minor

The Europe Minor qualifier featured sixteen teams.
mousesports Mouz (stylized as MOUZ), formerly mousesports, is a professional esports organisation based in Germany. It fields teams in several games but is particularly known for its '' CS2'' team. MOUZ was one of the founding members of the G7 Teams. H ...
were automatically invited based on their top sixteen placement at the FACEIT Major and another seven teams were invited. Eight more teams qualified through four online qualifiers. The qualifier had a sixteen team, double elimination bracket and teams played until eight teams qualified for the Europe Minor. The Europe Minor took place from January 16 to 20, 2019. ENCE and Team Vitality qualified for the main qualifier.


Asia Minor

The Asia Minor featured two teams from Oceania, two teams from China, two teams from East Asia, one team from Southeast Asia, and one team from the Middle East. Each qualifier featured four invited teams and another four teams through two online qualifiers. Each qualifier consist of an eight team, double elimination, best of three bracket. MVP PK was the first team to qualify for any Katowice 2019 Minor after defeating compatriot GOSU and Renegades rounded up the Asia Minor lineup after defeating Tainted Minds. The Asia Minor will take place from January 22 to 26, 2019.


Americas Minor

The Americas Minor featured two qualifiers, one from North America and one from South America. The North America qualifier featured sixteen teams. Eight teams were invited and another eight teams qualified through four online qualifiers. The qualifier would have a sixteen team, double elimination bracket and teams would play until six teams qualified for the Americas Minor. The South America qualifier featured eight teams. Four teams were invited and another four teams qualified through two online qualifiers. This qualifier have an eight team, double elimination, best of three bracket. Teams would play until two teams qualified for the Minor. The Americas Minor took place from January 22 to 26, 2019, the same dates as the Asia Minor.


Minor play-in

This qualifier featured the teams that placed third in their respective Minors. This phase was a four team, best of three, double elimination bracket. The opening matches were the Asia Minor representative against the Europe Minor representative and the CIS Minor team versus the Americans Minor team. The Minor play-in took place on January 27, 2019.


Broadcast talent

The Major was streamed in various languages across
Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...
. It was also streamed on ESL's
YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
channel, Steam.tv, and on CS:GO's in-game viewing client GOTV. Desk hosts * Alex "Machine" Richardson * Tres "stunna" Saranthus Stage host * OJ Borg Reporter * Frankie Ward Commentators * Henry "HenryG" Greer * Vince Hill * Jason "moses" O'Toole * Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett Analysts * Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill * Sean "seang@res" Gares * Jacob "Pimp" Winneche Observers * Connor "Sliggy" Blomfield * Heather "sapphiRe" Garozzo * David "Prius" Kuntz * Alex "Rushly" Rush


Teams competing


Pre-Major ranking

HLTV.org rank teams based on results of teams' performances. The rankings shown below reflect the February 11, 2019 rankings. Teams that were in the top 30 but failed to qualify for the major include
North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...
(#7, Denmark),
mousesports Mouz (stylized as MOUZ), formerly mousesports, is a professional esports organisation based in Germany. It fields teams in several games but is particularly known for its '' CS2'' team. MOUZ was one of the founding members of the G7 Teams. H ...
(#10, Europe), Ghost Gaming (#16, United States), Valiance (#20, Serbia), 3DMAX (#24, France), Heroic (#25, Denmark), forZe (#26, Russia), Luminosity Gaming (#27, Brazil), Sprout Esports (#29, Germany), and x6tence Galaxy (#30, Sweden). 1Change since September 24, 2018 ranking, the ranking after the FACEIT Major. 2Since end of FACEIT Major 3Best major placements may not necessarily reflect teams' current rosters


New Challengers stage

The New Challengers stage took place from February 13 to February 17, 2019, at the ESL Arena. The Challengers stage, also known as the Preliminary stage and formerly known as the offline qualifier, was a sixteen team
swiss tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...
. The seeding was released on February 6, 2019. Next to each team's name under the "Team" column is each team's initial seeding. Under each of the "Rounds" columns are the team's opponent's seed at the time the round was played.


New Legends stage

The New Legends stage, formerly known as the Group stage, used the same format as the Challengers stage. This stage takes place from February 20 to February 24, 2019, live at the International Congress Center in Katowice. The seeding was released on February 19, 2019. Next to each team's name under the "Team" column is each team's initial seeding. Under each of the "Rounds" columns are the team's opponent's seed at the time the round was played.


New Champions stage

The New Champions Stage, also known as the Playoffs, is a best of three double elimination bracket. Teams play until a winner is decided. This stage is taking place at the
Spodek Spodek is a multipurpose arena complex in Katowice, Poland, opened on 9 May 1971. Aside from the main dome, the complex includes a gym, an ice rink, a hotel and three large car parks. It was the largest indoor venue of its kind in Poland until ...
from February 28 to March 3, 2019. Brackets were revealed shortly after FaZe defeated Cloud9 in the last map of the group stages. Teams were seeded first based on their record in the New Legends stage and based on the strength of their schedule.


Bracket


Quarterfinals


Natus Vincere vs. FaZe Clan

''Casters: HenryG & Sadokist''


Team Liquid vs. ENCE eSports

''Casters: Vince Hill & moses''


MIBR vs. Renegades

''Casters: HenryG & Sadokist''


Astralis vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas

''Casters: Vince Hill & moses''


Semifinals


Natus Vincere vs. ENCE eSports

''Casters: HenryG & Sadokist''


MIBR vs. Astralis

''Casters: Vince Hill & moses''


Finals

''Casters: HenryG & Sadokist''


Final standings

The final placings are shown below. In addition, the prize distribution, seed for the next major, roster, and coaches are shown. Each team's in-game leader is shown first.


Post-Major ranking

The rankings shown below reflect the March 4, 2019 rankings, the first ranking after the Major. 1Change since February 11, 2019 ranking


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII - World Championship 2019 first-person shooter tournaments Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Majors Intel Extreme Masters Esports competitions in Poland