The IEM Cologne arena is set up for the event formerly known as ESL One Cologne until a new sponsorship contract with Intel was signed earlier in the year, and the organizer, ESL has revealed the first information about the contests initial round, the Play-In.
16 teams will be battling it out for 8 spots in the main IEM Cologne event, those teams are NIP, TeamOne, ViCi, FaZe, Sprout, LDLC, OG, MIBR, Renegades, Bad News Bears, BIG, Vitality, NIP, Complexity, Evil Geniuses & Spirit. They got here one of a few ways, either through qualifying through previous events, such as the 'Road To Cologne', ESL Pro Tour, or ESL World Rankings.
The opening rounds of this affair will start with Best of 1's, with all future matches, whether on the upper or lower bracket, being Best of 3's. Those who fall below 8th in rankings at this event will be sent packing with just a few thousand $s for their effort, however for the rest, just the day after this event ends, the main IEM Cologne 2021 event will get underway, where the winners will pocket $400,000.
The teams already qualified to the main Cologne event are current #1, the CIS legends of Gambit, along with Natus Vincere, G2, Heroic, Astralis, Liquid, FURIA & Virtus.pro, who all qualified through the 'Road to Cologne' events. With so much proven talent in the finale event, there will be a lot of eyes on struggling as of late teams like FaZe, mousesports, Renegades & Evil Geniuses, who throughout the last 18 month that LAN has been missing from our lives, have all considerably slipped down the ratings and charts from then to now.
The Play-In starts on July 6th and ends the day after, with the main IEM Cologne 2021 occurring from July 8th and ending on the 18th July.
The initial Play-In matches announced are below, which all start on 6th July, with all times in GMT.
- 1000: NIP - LDLC
- 1000: Bad News Bears - mousesports
- 1000: Spirit - MIBR
- 1130: Renegades - Vitality
- 1140: OG - TeamOne
- 1140: Sprout - BIG
- 1300: Evil Geniuses - FaZe
- 1320: Complexity - ViCi
