IEM Katowice 2023: Liquid eliminate FaZe, Outsiders advance

The second stage of IEM Katowice 2023 is over! And with that, we have the six teams still alive in the fight for the coveted champions trophy, direct qualification to IEM Cologne 2023, and the juicy prize of $400,000.

The six teams in the playoffs certainly deserve it. They have shown a lot of determination and, above all, a lot of consistency. The teams still in the running are:

• Team Vitality
• Team Liquid
• NaVi
• Outsiders
• G2 Esports
• Heroic

Before we move on to the tournament’s final phase, we will briefly review what happened in the Group Stage of IEM Katowice 2023.

G2 Esports and Heroic show their current high level of performance

G2 and Heroic, champions of the BLAST Premier World Finals and IEM Rio Major 2022, respectively, continue to be in great form at the start of 2023. This has been amply demonstrated in this IEM Katowice, where they have not faltered or crushed any of their opponents.

Group A Final – NaVi vs. G2 Esports

In Group A, G2 Esports was an actual executioner for each team they faced. First, they took BIG and FaZe Clan by storm, sending them to the Lower Bracket. Then, to finally get rid of NaVi in the Grand Final of the Upper Bracket, in a straightforward way with an immense Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov.

M0NESY, or the wunderkind as they call him, took it upon himself to end any illusions of NaVi in this final match. Also, it is worth noting that he crushed Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, as according to HLTV, the 17-year-old Russian beat him in all 13 confrontations he had against the world’s best player of 2022.

G2 Esports has shown a great level so far, but from there, to crush NaVi in two consecutive maps is entirely crazy. However, there is no doubt that they are the clear favorites to take the champions trophy of this IEM Katowice 2023.

Group B Final – Heroic vs. Team Vitality

In Group B, we saw how Heroic took down Team Vitality completely, who came very confident after beating a great team like Fnatic.

Just like G2 Esports, Heroic showed an uncompromising level in this final series, as they completely crushed Vitality to beat them in Inferno by 16-7 and in Overpass by 16-4.

Rasmus “sjuush” Beck and Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard carried Heroic to this comfortable victory in the Upper Bracket of the IEM Katowice 2023 Group Stage. Sjuush finished with a rating of 1.52, while jabbi with 1.50. Unfortunately, ZywOo and his boys could do nothing to stop this killing machine that Heroic put together in this final.

Outsiders and Team Liquid take the honors in the Lower Bracket

The big surprise of this tournament ended up being FaZe Clan’s early exit from IEM Katowice 2023. After the team lost 0-2 to G2 Esports in the Upper Bracket semifinals, they dropped their arms. Despite their “victory” against the Cinderella of this tournament, IHC, they also succumbed to Team Liquid in the final of the Lower Bracket to be eliminated.

Team Liquid was commanded by an incredible series played by Josh “oSee” Ohm, who wreaked havoc with FaZe Clan with his AWP. Unfortunately, despite a spectacular performance in the series, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken could do nothing against his former team.

On the other hand, Outsiders did the same against Complexity. The North American team seemed to have been reborn with this new lineup and was close to leaving the powerful Russian team on the road. However, after three spectacularly close and exciting maps, Outsiders took the 2-1 victory with a spectacular Dzhami “Jame” Ali, who finished the series with a 1.28 rating and a K-D of 59-38.

Now, the six teams left alive will play the IEM Katowice 2023 playoffs starting next Friday, February 10, with the following matches:

• Team Vitality vs. Team Liquid
• NaVi vs. Outsiders

Header: ESL