Organizers of CS:GO IEM Cologne 2023 published the final stage bracket of the championship. A total of six best teams from the group stage will compete in the playoffs.
In the first quarterfinal of the playoffs Team Vitality meets Cloud9. In Group A, Denis eletroNic 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 worse position in the playoffs.
Heroic and Astralis will meet in the second quarterfinal. The Danish team showed good performance during the group stage, snatching victory from their opponent. Casper cadiaN Møller's squad made it through the top bracket of Group A, but lost to ENCE in the final. Nikolaj device Reedtz's team, in its turn, managed to qualify for the playoffs from the lower bracket of Group B, where they knocked Natus Vincere 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 won Group 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 in prize money.
The championship playoffs will start on August 4 at 16:30 GMT+3. First there will be two quarterfinals, then semifinals will be held on August 5, and the event will end on the 6th of August with the final confrontation between the two best teams.
IEM Cologne 2023 takes place from July 26 to August 6 at the LAN in Cologne, Germany. 24 teams are playing for $1 million dollars in prize money. The winner will also get a slot at IEM Katowice 2024.