IEM Sydney participants

IEM Sydney 2023 is scheduled to take place between October 16-22. The qualifiers for the event are over and we now know who the 16 participants will be.

This is not a CS:GO Major and not even a major event, because its prize pool is only $250.000. But because it’s attended by the greatest teams in the world and presumably the greatest talent, automatically makes it an important tournament to watch. Plus it’s held in Australia, which is a rare location for CS:GO LAN events.

IEM Sydney teams

IEM Sydney features these 16 teams:

• ENCE
• FaZe Clan
• G2 Esports
• MOUZ
• Natus Vincere
• Team Vitality
• Cloud9
• GamerLegion
• Monte
• Fnatic
• Grayhound Gaming
• Apeks
• BetBoom Team
• Complexity Gaming
• Lynn Vision Gaming
• VERTEX Esports Club

🇦🇺 Have you ever? Ever felt like this? 🇦🇺

🚨 ANNOUNCING: #IEM SYDNEY 2023! 🚨

📅 OCTOBER 20 – 22
🎟️ TICKETS ON SALE THURSDAY ARVO
👊 GET AMONGST IT pic.twitter.com/5VuOoMP3vJ

— ESL Australia (@ESLAustralia) June 20, 2023

The local fans will no doubt cheer for Grayhound, VERTEX, and G2 (because jks is on the roster). In the case of the first two of these teams, people will inevitably be heartbroken. Their strength relative to that of the other competitors is simply too low. But G2 have a good chance of winning the trophy.

The list of very strong teams is quite long: ENCE, Vitality, Na’Vi, FaZe, C9, G2, and even Fnatic if they’re in good shape. The biggest teams that will not compete in the tournament are NiP, Astralis, BIG, and Team Liquid. Everyone else will be present in Sydney to entertain the Australians.

Until the tournament starts, there are still seven weeks to go. During this time, we will get the opportunity to watch ESL Pro League S18. The results from that tournament, which will last for an entire month, will tell us how strong the top teams are relative to each other.

At the recent Gamers8 event, Vitality won by defeating ENCE in the Grand Final, as well as G2 and Na’Vi along the way. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut is on his way to winning the CS:GO Player of the Year award again, and there are very few people who can contest him. One of them is Nikola “NiKo” Kovac from G2.

Format

IEM Sydney will use a typical competitive format: two groups of eight, followed by a six-team playoffs stage. The winners of the two groups advance to the semifinals. The 2^nd and 3^rd place teams advance to the quarterfinals. Throughout the event, every match is best-of-three, with the exception of the opening matches. Those are best-of-one.

Header: ESL