IEM Cologne 2023: First teams eliminated from the tournament already confirmed

The first big tournament of the second half of the season, the IEM Cologne 2023, is in full swing, and while we know the first four qualified teams, MOUZ, Fnatic, Astralis, and Monte, we also have to give the bad news. After the second day of competition, the first teams to return home after losing their two games are confirmed.

We are talking specifically about Into The Breach, Complexity, BIG, and Grayhound Gaming, who lost for the second time and say goodbye to the Play-In Phase of the IEM Cologne 2023. On the other hand, TheMongolz, OG, Team Liquid, and Imperial Esports survived the whirlwind to play for the qualification to the Group Stage in the next hours.

Let’s see what happened in the first matches of the IEM Cologne 2023 Lower Bracket.

TheMongolz and OG apply a reverse sweep against Into The Breach and Complexity Gaming

TheMongolz

The IEM Cologne 2023 Lower Bracket actions started with the series between TheMongolz and Into The Breach, where we observed how the Mongolian squad managed to take an excellent 2-0 victory to stay alive in the tournament. In addition, it is worth mentioning that both maps were comfortable 16-8 victories for TheMongolz.

It all started on Mirage, TheMongolz’s map pick, where ITB could do absolutely nothing from the beginning of the match, as they could only win three rounds in the first half on their CT side. Then, they tried an awakening that lasted only five rounds, as TheMongolz took the win 16-8.

Then, on the second map, Ancient, the story was the same, as the first half ended with a score in favor of TheMongolz by 12-3. Finally, ITB won the same five rounds to make up the score and fell by 8-16.

A commanding victory coming out from @MongolzCs

They defeat @ITBesports with a clean 2-0 in order to stay alive at #IEM Cologne 2023 🙌

16-8 Mirage
16-8 Ancient pic.twitter.com/aY7gTGdxre

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 27, 2023

OG

On the other hand, OG had to struggle a bit more to take the win in their series against Complexity Gaming by 2-0. However, the team held firm and took the win to stay alive in the tournament.

In the first map, Mirage, Complexity started winning the first half by 8-7. However, at the change of sides, they could not overcome OG’s defense and ended up losing 11-16.

Then, in the second map, things changed radically, as OG started very strong winning the first half by 11-4. Then, in the second half, COL came close to completing a comeback, but OG ultimately prevented it and took the win by 16-12.

.@OGcsgo eliminate @Complexity from #IEM Cologne 2023 after a 2-0 triumph over the North Americans.

16-11 Mirage
16-12 Overpass pic.twitter.com/mLlDzkK4Pf

— Intel® Extreme Masters (@IEM) July 27, 2023

Team Liquid and Imperial survive and will fight for qualification to the Group Stage

On the other hand, the other two matches played on the last day were victories for Team Liquid and Imperial Esports. As a result, both teams advance to Round 2 of the Lower Bracket to fight for the last spots for the Group Stage of IEM Cologne 2023.

Team Liquid

We start with the match between Team Liquid and BIG, two teams that did not show a good face in their first match of the tournament, so they came with the firm conviction of taking a resounding victory. In the first map, Vertigo, Team Liquid managed to decipher BIG’s defense to give the first blow in the series and take a 16-13 victory.

Then, in the second map, Mirage, the German squad managed to strike back, but they had to fight for longer since everything was defined in Overtime. After the first two halves ended with even scores of 8-7 and 8-7, BIG managed to win four rounds in Overtime to take the victory by 19-17 and even the series 1-1.

Finally, Team Liquid pulled out all the stops and their excellent level of play to take a solid 16-9 victory that put them one step away from qualifying for the Group Stage.

.@TeamLiquidCS hold on to their lives in #IEM Cologne after taking down @BIGCLANgg 2-1!

16-13 Vertigo
17-19 Mirage
16-9 Overpass pic.twitter.com/11mfpzTO78

— Intel® Extreme Masters (@IEM) July 27, 2023

Imperial

Finally, Imperial Esports stays alive in the tournament after an excellent 2-1 win over Grayhound Gaming.

There is no doubt that Imperial was far superior to Grayhound during the BO3, but they skidded in the second map, so everything had to be defined in the third map Nuke. It all started with a solid victory for Imperial in Inferno by 16-5, where Vinicius “VINI” Figueiredo proved that you can be IGL and carry your team.

Then, on the second map, Grayhound got a wake-up call from Alistair “aliStair” Johnston and Jay “Liazz” Tregillgas to take the narrow 16-14 win. Finally, Imperial again showed excellent play in Nuke to take a resounding 16-8 victory.

.@imperialesports STAY ALIVE!!! 🇧🇷

They defeat @grayhoundgaming 2-1 in the lower bracket of the #IEM Cologne Play-in stage

16-5 Inferno
14-16 Mirage
16-8 Nuke pic.twitter.com/T7tK6JFK8T

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) July 27, 2023

Header: ESL