This is the 7th time returning to Katowice, this CS:GO tournament will feature the strongest teams in the world competing from February 24 to March 1. 16 teams will be evenly divided into 2 groups, after which the top 6 teams will advance to the playoffs held at Spodek Arena.
Have you missed out on what has been happening in the CS:GO scene this year, or are you just following the major tournaments? With this article, we will equip you with the most important information so you can fully enjoy the first major tournament of this year – IEM Katowice 2020.
Katowice 2020 – No to Bo1
The randomness in the Bo1 matches and the advantage it brings to underdog teams against top teams has always been a topic of debate, and many recent tournaments have switched to only playing Bo3, which most audiences are very satisfied with. ESL also made changes by introducing a new format in 2017 with the group stage mostly being Bo3 in the upper-lower bracket, but the opening match was still Bo1, which has still had quite an impact.
However, this issue will be thoroughly resolved this year when at IEM Katowice 2020 (and also ESL One Cologne 2020), Bo1 matches will be completely eliminated, all matches will be Bo3 and the finals will be Bo5.
The presence of all top 10 teams
IEM Katowice 2020 is not only the largest LAN event at the beginning of the year, but also an event that includes all teams currently ranked in the top 10 on the HLTV leaderboard. In addition to top names like Astralis, mousesports, Liquid, Evil Geniuses, and teams of idols like Na`Vi, Vitality, high-performing teams like G2 Esports and FaZe Clan will also be present.
Not only are the top 10 teams present, but the competition at the tournament is still incredibly fierce: all participating teams are in the top 30, and we must mention names like MAD Lions, NiP, or Renegades – promising to create some surprises in this tournament. Another noteworthy point is that this is the first time since 2015 that there will be no Brazilian teams in Katowice as both MIBR, INTZ, and FURIA failed in the North American qualifiers.
Only 3 names have lifted the Katowice trophy
As a tournament with a long history in CS:GO, only 3 names have lifted the prestigious Katowice trophy to this day: Virtus.pro (2014), fnatic (2015, 2016, 2018), and Astralis (2017 and 2019).
All 3 of these names will participate in IEM Katowice 2020, although Virtus.pro has a different lineup, and we will see if history will repeat itself or if a new name will lift this prestigious trophy this year.
Captain Zeus chosen to present the Katowice 2020 trophy on stage
Captain Zeus, the legendary former captain of Na`Vi, will have the honor of being chosen to bring out the IEM Katowice 2020 trophy at the opening ceremony of this tournament. Na`Vi fans are also hoping that if on the opening day Zeus brings out the trophy, then by the end of the tournament, the members of the Golden Dragon will lift this trophy high.
Mouz continuously appears in finals
For audiences who only follow the biggest tournaments, they witnessed mousesports defeating Astralis and Fnatic to become champions of ESL Pro League Season 10 at the end of last year, but they may not have noticed the other impressive achievements of these guys.
4 championships (CS:GO Asia Championship, ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, cs_summit 5, ICE Challenge) and one runner-up (EPICENTER 2019) have marked the achievement of mousesports reaching the finals in 5 consecutive events.
Although not all of the mentioned tournaments are major LAN events, mousesports’ consistency during a time when many other teams are struggling is helping them nearly overtake Astralis in the rankings. If they continue to maintain this form, they could become the second multi-national team in history to achieve top 1 on HLTV (after FaZe Clan).
Mousesports’ achievements in the last 5 tournaments:
– CS:GO Asia Championships – 1st (November)
– ESL Pro League S10 Finals – 1st (December)
– cs_summit 5 – 1st (December)
– EPICENTER 2019 – 2nd (December)
– ICE Challenge – 1st (February)
FaZe trusts broky with the AWPer position
The young talent from Latvia joined FaZe after last summer’s break as the best free agent transfer FaZe could find, after the organization had to spend a lot to take coldzera from MIBR. And even though he had an impressive performance at FPL, broky still lacked experience and trust, so he had to revert to the support position.
In 2019, only 5% of broky’s kills were made with the AWP (ranked 4th in FaZe), although his position in his old team was as the 2nd AWPer. The main AWPer position of FaZe at that time was given to olofmeister, and occasionally NiKo and coldzera would also use the AWP, but that has completely changed this year.
In the 6 maps played at BLAST, 36.7% of broky’s kills were with the AWP and he achieved a rating of 1.38 – a very impressive number. Even so, he is still only the 4th highest-rated player in the team, however, trusting the youngest member with the main AWPer position has helped FaZe improve their performance as well as brought great confidence to broky.
HUNDEN participates in a major tournament for the first time since 2014
HUNDEN has done it. Considered a meme for many years with his terrible individual performances, the Danish strategist has always been drained of the outstanding players he discovered (including k0nfig, es3tag, niko, JUGi, and b0RUP). Therefore, many people still hoped that HUNDEN would give up and become a coach – after all, he had once led 3 of the most talented IGLs in Denmark’s CS: gla1ve, Snappi, and MSL.
But even by 2018, when he was too tired of being a prey for the big teams in Denmark, HUNDEN still did not give up. Instead, he moved to Germany, trained 3 current players of BIG (tizian, syrsoN, and k1to), and helped ALTERNATE aTTax achieve the best results in the team’s history since 2016.
After a long and arduous journey, the criticisms and mockery he has endured for years, combined with the fact that the promising players he developed always left him – all have made HUNDEN’s success today even sweeter.
Winning the V4 Future Sports was the first step, followed by joining a financially solid organization like MAD Lions, and finally surpassing Heroic and North in the rankings to become Denmark’s number 2 CS:GO team. Now, HUNDEN has yet another sweet achievement – participating in IEM Katowice. This is the first major tournament the 28-year-old player has attended since 2014.
Some former teammates of HUNDEN:
NiP no longer has key players in the team
Starting with Filllaren, then friberg, Xizt, GeT_RiGhT, and finally f0rest, these legends have successively left to reunite in the 87-0 lineup under Dignitas colors. And now NiP will have to rebuild their name, but what they currently have is truly very unstable.
Coming to IEM Katowice, the longest-serving players in NiP’s colors are… REZ and Lekro. Regarded as the new ray of hope from Sweden with a championship and MVP at IEM Oakland 2017, but currently REZ is not meeting those expectations, especially since Plopski joined. On the other hand, although Lekro has been the team’s IGL for a long time, he still cannot compare with the IGLs in the top 10 teams.
All the values that those before left behind are now gone, while the current lineup has yet to unleash its full potential, NiP is struggling more than ever not only in their quest for success but also to overcome the shadow of the old legends.
IEM Katowice 2020 will kick off from February 24, 2020, to March 1, 2020, and will be commented in Vietnamese on the 500Bros YouTube channel. Be sure to tune in!