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IEM Katowice 2021 Playoffs – The rise of the CIS

The IEM Katowice 2021 Playoffs are right around the corner. Six teams remain in one of the biggest tournaments of the year. The Playoffs section of IEM Katowice is typically reserved the strongest of Europe, the CIS and NA. However, the 2021 edition of the event is seeing the overwhelming presence of the CIS teams. Let us take a look at the journey of the Playoff teams and what it means moving forward.

The CIS dominate

Just before the event, we at Dart Frog mentioned that the CIS teams really have the potential to upset this event. Lo and behold this is exactly what happened. The four CIS team all made it to the Playoffs, with Team Spirit being the team to earn a direct seed into the semi-finals.

The four teams all had interesting runs through the Group Stages, with theoretically surprise upsets all over the place. We know for a fact that these teams certainly had the potential to go far. The likes of Gambit and Virtus Pro have attended events throughout last year getting wins over some of Europe’s and NA’s best. On the other hand, Team Spirit and Na’Vi have been at each other throats for the majority of 2020 in the CIS regional brackets.

The Lower Bracket CIS teams

Gambit Esports started off slow, losing 0-2 to EG in the first round. However, they went on to win their Lower Bracket group. They beat mousesports, Heroic, and G2 Esports in the Lower Bracket. G2 and mousesports all fell 2-0 the former youngsters. while Heroic gave them a good showing ina 2-1 series. Arguably, mousesports and G2 were not as big, since both these teams have issues. But the Heroic series was certainly a valid upset.

not bad, king

Moving on, Virtus.Pro was in the same spot. They too had to make a Lower Bracket Round One run in Group B. VP started off with a loss to CIS supreme team oof NaVi. The roster then crawled it back with a 2-0 win over NiP and surprisingly Team Vitality, before taking down FURIA and making it to the Playoffs.

The Upper CIS

The number one dog in Na’Vi has a good run through the Group Stages, only losing to Team Liquid in the Upper Bracket Final. Na’Vi performed very well against VP, with a very similar result vs FURIA. The only time Na’Vi was really challenged was against Team Liquid, with the third map going to overtime before Team Liquid won the series.

Meanwhile, Team Spirit performed exceptionally well. TS started off very competitive vs G2 Esports. A 2-1 series was the result, with the Team Spirit victories being fairly close. The same story could be told for Heroic with 16-12 and 16-14 map results. Although, the real surprise was the Astralis series. The roster continued their narrative, until the final map of the Upper Bracket of Group A. The result was a near 16-0 for Team Spirit, with Astralis only clutching the pistol round to make it a 16-1 map. The result is actually incredible.

If only this moment was on LAN
An appropriate meme

What’s Next

IEM Katowice 2021 Playoffs commences on February 26t with the Quarter Finals. Natus Vincere faces off against fellow CIS team Gambit, with Astralis battling Virtus.pro on the other side of the bracket. The winners of Na’Vi and Gambit will then advance to face off against Team Spirit, with Team Liquid awaiting the other series.

Regardless of the outcome, there will be at least one CIS team in the Finals, which is certainly something to shout home about. We look forward to seeing the action unfold in the IEM Katowice 2021 Playoffs.

Will the dream come true?

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch.  Image via ESL Gaming.

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IEM Katowice 2021: MiBR vs. Fnatic Result Eliminates The Swedes

After a shocking start to the IEM Katowice 2021 event, Fnatic has departed the tournament after failing to win a map. The Swedish squad played their final series against MiBR, which ended in a 2-0 sweep. As a result one of the most decorated teams in Katowice history is out. Although far from the predicted result, it’s emblematic of the beauty of Katowice. So what happened?

Fnatic’s Drop to Lower Bracket

Fnatic started off the event in a bad spot. In their first series versus OG, the roster failed to amount to anything. Starting Overpass on CT side, the squad started at a deficit to their opponents 10-5 . Moving onto the next half, things weren’t much better. OG started off strong on the weaker side transitioned into the new half where they snowballed a 16-9 win.

As for the players themselves, only Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson of the old guard performed well, with a 0.93 rating. The IGL, Maikil “Golden” Kunda Selim, had to step up with his 0.9 rating. This was against the likes of OG’s Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt’s Deagle 3k, Issa “ISSAA” Murad’s near pistol ace, and other clutch moments.

MiBR vs. Fnatic

The MiBR vs Fnatic series, compared to the OG match, was quite surprising. The new MiBR lineup consisted of the former BOOM roster, after MiBR’s temporary fix late last year backfired. This roster is decent, but heading to one of the biggest ESL Pro Tour events with a lineup that wasn’t part of the team’s 2020 journey was sketchy. However, taking down Fnatic is a good sign.

This series was again a straight 2-0, with MiBR winning Dust 16-12 and Overpass 16-9. The trend continues of Fnatic losing Overpass on the same score. But as for the player ratings, the result was flipped on its head. Younger stars Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin and Jack Ström “Jackinho” Mattsson took the reins while the old guard and IGL fell off.

With the defeat, Fnatic says goodbye to an event they have won several times. It seems likely that Fnatic can bounce back as, they have done before. Hopefully, the roster can come out of this slump and learn along with their new younger talent.

Goodbye Fnatic

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch.  Image via ESL Gaming

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IEM Katowice 2021 talent line-up announced, GeT RiGhT on Analyst Desk

ESL Gaming has announced the IEM Katowice 2021 talent line-up for its CS:GO event. The tournament is getting plenty of CS:GO’s biggest talent to cast, analyse and host the event, alongside a few notable figures added into the fray.

IEM Katowice 2021 talent line-up

The usual CS:GO talent pool is back for the IEM Katowice 2021 event. The talent list features the big names we see across several ESL Gaming CS:GO events. Furthermore, a few rising star talent members are part of the main line-up, with a few faces we know and love acting as analysts.

  • Tres “stunna” Saranthus – Desk Host
  • Janko “YNk” Paunović – Analyst
  • Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunović – Analyst
  • Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund – Analyst
  • Alex “Machine” Richardson  – Caster
  • Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill  – Caster
  • Harry “JustHarry” Russell – Caster
  • Hugo “Hugo” Bryon – Caster
  • Frankie “Frankie” Ward – Interviewer

Most of the names on the list are the usual CS:GO talent we see during events. However, the interesting part is the promotion of caster duo, Harry and Hugo, alongside the masterminds of CS:GO, YNK, Kassad, and GeT Right.

The other talent taking part for the alternate streams are

  • Mike “DarfMike” Winnick – Caster
  • Joshua “Dweg” Nathan – Caster
  • Jamie “TheEternalJay” Martin – Caster
  • Dean “Dean” Brown
The full talent list across every stream of the event.

The return of the old guard

Some of the old guard of CS:GO is back at Katowice 2021, only this time they are the three broadcast analysts. GeT Right, YNK, and Kassad feature on the analyst’s desk, with all three very recently announcing changes to their careers. GeT Right announced he was stepping down from competitive play in January 2021. YNK and Kassad, on the other hand, both left their recent projects as coaches on FaZe Clan and Cloud 9 respectively.

The trio on the analyst desk is something that is going to want fans to tune into and listen to their post-game commentary. IEM Katowice 2021 kicks off on February 16th- through to the 28th with the most well rounded CS:GO teams throughout 2020 in attendance. This year is going to be big, even with the event taking place online yet again.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch.  Image via ESL Gaming.

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Eight teams confirmed for IEM Global Challenge 2020

The IEM Global Challenge 2020 is confirmed, with the eight teams heading to Europe to compete in one of the 2020’s final events. The IEM Global Challenge 2020 will feature the four teams who earned their way to the event via recent tournament victories, with another four teams gaining their spot through the World Ranking system.

The first four teams to earn their spot through the events are Heroic, FURIA, Team Vitality and Chaos Esports Club. These four teams were successful at the DreamHack Open Fall, IEM New York NA, IEM Beijing-Haidian EU and NA events. While FURIA and Heroic were confirmed for months, Vitality and Chaos joust joined with the success at IEM Beijing over the weekend.

With the four teams confirmed, there were another four teams to earn direct invites through the ESL Pro Tour Rankings. Europe has two slots to the event, with Astralis and Complexity earning their tokens to the event. Over in North America, Evil Geniuses clinched their spot as they have had the next best run after FURIA Esports took the mantle over the last few months. Natus Vincere takes the final slot as they are the most dominant team in the CIS region.

What the Invited Teams means for the Event

The most interesting part of this is how Astralis and Complexity are the two European teams attending. With the recent Vitality victory at IEM Beijing, they secured themselves a spot. If they didn’t the competition of EU teams could have meant Vitality may have earned their invite through the EU top teams, while competing against the likes of BIG and Complexity for the spot.

The stars aligned for Complexity’s invite

On the other hand, the North American seeds are wild. With both Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses getting eliminated by Chaos E.C. and Triumph, it meant that one of NA’s T2 teams were going to a big event with intercontinental matchups. A typical final between EG and TL would have likely meant that both teams would have been invited, but the rise of Chaos has thrown a spanner in the works to really grow the success of the roster.

There was no question for Na’vi’s appearance at the event. If they won the EU Beijing event, they would have qualified via that route. But if they didn’t, then there was no doubt they would qualify through CIS. The only team close to them are VP and forZe, but both rosters are considerably far behind them in terms of quality.

With the amalgamation of teams at the event, the IEM Global Challenge 2020 is going to be an interesting event, with plenty of big teams competing against teams they normally never compete against. The IEM Global Challenge 2020 is set to start on December 15th to December 20th. The groups for the event are yet to be revealed.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch.  Image via IEM.