FURIA squeeze into IEM Katowice group stage

Field Level Media|published: Sat 1st February, 06:22 2025

Nov 5, 2022; San Francisco, California, USA; Fans do the wave between games of the League of Legends World Championships between T1 and DRX at Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

FURIA Esports rallied for a 2-1 victory over Wildcard on Friday in the last upper-bracket second-round match at the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, earning a group-stage spot in Poland.

Four more teams -- BIG, Virtus.pro, Astralis and Team Liquid -- worked their way into the group stage by earning 2-0 sweeps in lower-bracket second-round matches on Friday.

Sixteen teams competed in the double-elimination play-in bracket, chasing eight spots in the group stage of the $1 million Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament. All play-in matches were best-of-three.

Eight teams -- G2 Esports, Team Spirit, The MongolZ, Team Vitality, FaZe Clan, MOUZ, Natus Vincere and Team Falcons -- already were through to the group stage based on their global standing in early January.

Group play will see the 16 teams split into two double-elimination brackets, with all matches best-of-three. The two group-phase winners will advance directly to the semifinals, the two group-phase runners-up will move to the quarterfinals as high seeds, and the two third-place teams will make the quarterfinals as low seeds.

The playoff will be single elimination, with best-of-three matches for the quarterfinals and semifinals ahead of a best-of-five grand final on Feb. 9. The champion will earn $400,000.

On Friday, Wildcard jumped on top with a 13-4 rout on Inferno. However, FURIA came back to claim Dust II 13-5, then took Nuke 16-13 in overtime to advance.

Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato led FURIA's All-Brazilian squad with 56 kills and a plus-10 kill-death differential. South Africa's Aran "Sonic" Groesbeek topped Wildcard with 55 kills and a plus-11 K-D differential.

BIG easily got past HEROIC 13-2 on Nuke, 13-4 on Ancient. Marcel "hyped" Kohn produced 45 kills and a plus-30 K-D differential for BIG's all-German roster. Belarus' Andrey "tN1R" Tatarinovich logged 26 kills and a minus-3 K-D differential for HEROIC.

Virtus.pro eased past MIBR 13-4 on Anubis, 13-10 on Ancient. Russia's Evgenii "FL1T" Lebedev recorded 34 kills and a plus-10 K-D differential for Virtus.pro. Rafael "saffee" Costa finished with 25 kills and a minus-5 K-D differential for all-Brazilian MIBR.

Astralis eliminated paiN Gaming 13-7 on Inferno, 13-9 on Dust II. Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard topped all-Danish Astralis with 32 kills, while teammate Nicolai "device" Reedtz had a match-high plus-14 K-D differential. Kaue "kauez" Kaschuk wound up with 30 kills and a minus-4 K-D differential for paiN Gaming.

Team Liquid dumped Wildcard 16-12 in overtime on Inferno, 13-0 on Anubis. Poland's Roland "ultimate" Tomkowiak put up 41 kills and a plus-20 K-D differential for Liquid. Sweden's Love "phzy" Smidebrant managed 28 kills and a minus-7 K-D differential for Wildcard.

The group phase starts Saturday with six matches:

Group A upper-bracket quarterfinals

--G2 Esports vs. Virtus.pro

--Eternal Fire vs. Team Falcons

--Team Vitality vs. 3DMAX

--BIG vs. FaZe Clan

Group B upper-bracket quarterfinals

--FURIA Esports vs. Natus Vincere

--MOUZ vs. GamerLegion

The last two Group B upper-bracket quarterfinals are scheduled for Sunday:

--Team Spirit vs. Astralis

--Team Liquid vs. The MongolZ