Three teams secure advancement at IEM Katowice

Eternal Fire, 3DMAX and GamerLegion nabbed the first three play-in berths into the group stage of the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice event on Thursday in Poland.

Eternal Fire defeated HEROIC, 3DMAX beat MIBR and GamerLegion knocked off paiN Gaming -- all by 2-0 scores -- in the second round of the play-in stage upper bracket. Also Thursday, the first three teams were eliminated via the lower bracket: FlyQuest, SAW and Imperial Female.

Sixteen teams are competing 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 are best-of-three.

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

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 Thursday, Eternal Fire edged HEROIC 13-11 on Nuke and 16-14 in overtime on Anubis. The all-Turkish winning side was led by Ali "Wicadia" Haydar Yalcin (46 kills, plus-8 K-D differential), Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dortkardes (46 kills, plus-9) and Ozgur "woxic" Eker (45 kills, plus-11).

3DMAX went into overtime to beat MIBR 19-16 on Inferno before finishing the job 13-5 on Nuke. Bryan "Maka" Canda and Pierre "Ex3rcice" Bulinge posted matching lines of 40 kills and plus-8 differentials for 3DMAX.

GamerLegion trounced paiN 13-3 on Inferno and 13-5 on Mirage. Fredrik "REZ" Sterner of Sweden led the winners with 35 kills and a plus-16.

Down in the lower bracket, in the only match of the day that went to three maps, Astralis beat FlyQuest 2-1. They first dropped a 13-5 decision on Train before winning 13-7 on Ancient and 13-11 on Inferno. Nicolai "device" Reedtz of Denmark had 47 kills and a plus-5 for Astralis.

Virtus.pro blew past SAW 13-4 on Dust II and 13-3 on Inferno. Russian Petr "fame" Bolyshev paced VP with 37 kills and a plus-23.

BIG took down Imperial Female 13-4 on Inferno and 13-5 on Ancient, with Karim "Krimbo" Moussa leading the all-German outfit with 34 kills and a plus-19.

The Friday schedule:

--Upper-bracket Round 2: Wildcard vs. FURIA Esports

--Lower-bracket Round 1: Team Liquid vs. Complexity

--Lower-bracket Round 2: Two teams TBD

--Lower-bracket Round 2: paiN Gaming vs. Astralis

--Lower-bracket Round 2: MIBR vs. Virtus.pro

--Lower-bracket Round 2: HEROIC vs. BIG

Intel Extreme Masters Katowice prize pool

1. $400,000

2. $180,000

3-4. $80,000

5-6. $40,000

7-8. $24,000

9-12. $16,000

13-16. $10,000

17-20. $4,500

21-24. $2,500 -- FlyQuest, SAW, Imperial Female, one team TBD

--Field Level Media