Organizers of CS:GO IEM Cologne 2023 published the grid of the final stage of the championship. Six best teams from the group stage will play in the playoffs.
Team Vitality and Cloud9 will meet in the first quarterfinal of the playoffs at 16:30. In Group A, Denis electroNic Sharipov's squad lost to fnatic in the upper bracket, but quickly recovered and made it through the lower bracket, defeating 9INE, Monte and GamerLegion to advance to the playoffs.
Team Vitality did better in Group B, defeating OG and MOUZ to advance to the finals. However, in the final, Mathieu ZywOo Herbaut's squad was weaker than G2 Esports, which resulted in a less favorable position in the playoffs.
Heroic and Astralis will meet in the second quarterfinal at 20:00 GMT+3. The Danish team showed good performance during the group stage, snatching victory from their opponent. Kasper cadiaN Møller's squad made it through the upper bracket of Group A, but lost to ENCE in the final, while Nicolai dev1ce Reedtz's team managed to qualify for the playoffs from the lower bracket of Group B, where they knocked Natus Vincere roster out of IEM Cologne 2023 in the final.
The winners of these matches will advance to the semifinals, where they will meet ENCE and G2 Esports, who were the winners of Groups A and B.
Recall that after the group stage, TheMongolz, 9INE, fnatic, Monte, GamerLegion, OG, Ninjas in Pyjamas, FaZe Clan, MOUZ and Natus Vincere dropped out of the championship. Oleksandr s1mple Kostyliev's squad took 7th-8th place and earned $24,000 of prize money.
The championship playoffs will start on August 4 at 16:30 GMT+3. First, there will be two quarterfinals, then, on August 5, the semifinals will be held, and the event will end on August 6 with the final confrontation between the two best teams.
IEM Cologne 2023 takes place from July 26 to August 6 at LAN in Cologne, Germany. 24 teams are competing for one million dollars in prize money. The winner will also get a slot at IEM Katowice 2024.