2020 IEM Katowice: StarCraft 2 Preview

What is IEM?

The Intel Extreme Masters Katowice is back again starting February 24th and ending the first of March. IEM tournaments are always some of the most popular and important tournaments of the year. They host a variety of different Esports but in the ESL Spodek Arena in Poland, StarCraft 2 is a main event. The Prize Pool is a grand $250,000 spread out from 1st to 60th place. The Grand Prize is $150,000 with the lowest place prize for 45th to 60th place being $600.

Tournament Style Breakdown.

There are players from all over the world competing in the initial Ro76, with 4 double elimination brackets playing Best of 3 maps resulting in 12 players advancing. Those 12 players are then seeded into the Ro24 along with Dark, the 2019 WCS Global Finals winner, and the 11 players who qualified through the offline qualifiers.

The Ro24 consists of four groups of six playing round robin Best of 3 maps where the top 3 from each group move on to the Ro12. Things get a little more spicy in the playoffs with the 1st seed from each group seeding directly into the Quarterfinals and the 2nd and 3rd seeds starting in the Ro12. The playoffs are single elimination Best of 5 maps.

2020 IEM Katowice Contenders

76 players will be invited to the event but based on the offline qualifiers, 11 players will join Dark in the Ro24. As of now we don’t know who else will be in attendance officially but to keep up with the tournament make sure to check out all the Ro24 qualified players here.

Group A: Dark (Z), Stats(P), PatinG(P), TBD(3)

Group B: Reynor(Z), Rogue(Z), Zest(P), TBD(3)

Group C: Maru(T), Elazer(Z), Solar(Z), TBD(3)

Group D: Serral (Z), TY(T), Cure(T), TBD(3)

Closing

With IEM Katowice right around the corner we are in for an action packed start to the 2020 StarCraft 2 season, Though, at the time of writing, no official WCS schedule has been released. Depending on whether or not WCS Winter will return and on it’s hypothetical start date, IEM could be the first SC2 tournament of the year! Make sure to check it out on February 24 at https://www.twitch.tv/esl_sc2.