Details of IEM Katowice 2022 presented

The organizers have presented the first details of IEM Katowice 2022. The championship will be held from 15 to 27 February with spectators. ESL Product Development Director Michal "Carmac" Blikhazh and Alexander Tekov from ESL Gaming Poland took part in a press conference ahead of IEM Katowice 2022 CS: GO, talking about the format of the event.

We plan and want this. But no promises can be made. We really want to, but now the whole world cannot plan something, and we will not. We will do our best for the tournament to be held with spectators. Because for the sake of them we hold championships.

Now we are looking at the situation in Poland and we see that the numbers in the country are decreasing. However, we are seeing waves of Omicron hitting Western Europe. We made two decisions today: The Spodek and StarCraft 2 Tournament Scenes will only be open to ticket holders with COVID passports. In addition, the annual IEM Expo will be canceled.

IEM Katowice 2022 CS: GO will offer the participating teams a prize pool of $ 1,000,000 and 10,240 ESL Pro Tour points. The championship will begin with the Play-In stage, where 16 teams will compete for eight tickets to the group stage.

Participants of IEM Katowice 2022 Play-In: Ninjas in Pajamas, Astralis, FaZe Clan, GODSENT, Extra Salt, MIBR, Renegades, TYLOO, BIG, Entropiq, OG, Copenhagen Flames, Fnatic, ENCE, MOUZ and Wisła Kraków.

The seeded participants of IEM Katowice 2022: Natus Vincere, Gambit Esports, G2 Esports, Team Vitality, Heroic, Virtus.pro, FURIA Esports and Team Liquid.