IEM Katowice favorites

IEM Katowice will be the first $1 million CS:GO event of 2023. The tournament brings together 24 teams and many of them are among the world’s best.

Almost everyone that you’d expect to play in the tournament will actually compete in it. This makes the battle for the title very exciting. Among the favorites we have teams like FaZe Clan, Team Vitality, and G2 Esports. But there are many other teams that are worth watching.

Tournament favorites

Among the best teams that will take part in IEM Katowice, these are the most likely to succeed:

• FaZe Clan
• G2 Esports
• Team Liquid
• Team Vitality
• Natus Vincere
• Cloud9
• FURIA Esports
• Outsiders
• MOUZ
• Heroic
• Fnatic
• Ninjas in Pyjamas

No less than 12 teams have a realistic chance of winning the title. Of course, some are much more likely to succeed than others. One such team is FaZe Clan.

FaZe enter this tournament with the objective of winning the title. This would also give them the Intel Grand Slam Season 4 victory. They currently have three trophies that count and winning a fourth at IEM Katowice would help them complete the requirements for winning the Grand Slam.

FaZe are really strong right now but their ability to win against the world’s best CS:GO teams is in question.  Havard “rain” Nygaard has had family responsibilities to take care of and he’s likely not 100% focused on the game.

Given his level of ability, this shouldn’t be a problem for him and his team. But it’s still doubtful that FaZe can win under these conditions.

The teams that look a bit more likely to succeed are G2 Esports and Team Vitality. Both of them are very strong and demonstrated this at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups, where they won their respective groups while defeating world-class opponents in the process.

G2 defeated Natus Vincere twice. Each time, the score was 2-0 in their favor. The first match was tough, but in the second one, Nikola “NiKo” Kovac had a phenomenal performance and finished with a KD score of +30, with an ADR of 102.9.

Vitality also had a dominant run. Their opponents were Astralis, Evil Geniuses, and Heroic. In every single match, Mathiew “ZywOo” Herbaut proved to be one class above everyone else. Thanks to his performance, Vitality won most of the key rounds and didn’t have that many problems.

Astralis made them work hard on the second map (19-15) and Heroic managed to win one map (13-16 on Nuke). But overall, Vitality looked like they were winning with ease.

Header: ESL