After just 48 hours of chaos, the 16 starting teams have been whittled to the 8 to go on and compete for the $400,000 prize waiting for the winner of IEM Cologne 2021.

The teams through to the main event are NIP, FaZe, BIG, Complexity, Renegades, Vitality, Spirit & mousesports. They'll join the other eight teams already qualified, which are Liquid, FURIA, Virtus.pro, Astralis, Gambit, G2, Natus Vincere & Heroic.

The main event hasn't even started, however the play-in gave us a heap of exciting battles and efforts. One shining example of this is MIBR, who put all they had into each fight, and although being knocked out early on they came so close against Renegades, losing the first map of that match 15-19, after crawling to the 15-15 overtime point, and running out of steam at the last moment, on the next map they came once again so close to that 15-15, although at the moment Renegades stole the match 16-14. Meanwhile, FaZe, NIP & BIG qualified without dropping any maps, the only 3 to qualify in this convincing manner. For those who didn't make it however they'll be looking at the silver lining, as everyone who got knocked out will still get some money to ease their pain. With Bad News Bears, MIBR, ViCi & Team One taking home $2,500 and OG, LDLC, Evil Geniuses & Sprout taking home $4,500. 

Tomorrow we go straight into the main event, where day 1 will give us the likes of Gambit, Vitality, G2 & Natus Vincere going headfirst into combat. They'll be no time to rest between matches, as the Grand Final is on Sunday, meaning just 4 days now separate teams from their ultimate goal of $400,000 and a giant bit of silverware to weigh down someone's shelves. Going forward, everyone is guaranteed a minimum of $10,000 for simply qualifying for IEM Cologne.

Stay with us here on GamerGalaxy, and we'll be sure to update you as the tournament progresses.