IEM Katowice 2020 - Intel Extreme Masters Season XIV
A $500,000 championship taking place in Katowice.
Match schedule
Bracket
Map pool
General information
The fourteenth season of Intel Extreme Masters в Катовице will be taking place from 25 February till 1 March. The venue of the playoff stage will traditionally be Spodek Arena. The group stage will be held in the congress hall named International Congress Centre. The prize pool of IEM Katowice 2020 will consist of $500,000, and its division will be done by 16 teams.
Contestants
At the championship, 16 slots will be divided in the following way:
- 1 invite for the winner of DreamHack Masters Malmo 2019 (Fnatic)
- 1 invite for the winner of IEM Beijing 2019 (Astralis)
- 1 invite for the winner of ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals (mousesports-rk_sZWmseY9z">mousesports-rk_sZWmseY9z">mousesports)
- 7 direct invitations
- 3 invites for the European qualifier
- 1 invite for the North American qualifier
- 1 invite for the elimination round in Oceania
- 1 invite for the Asian qualifier
Holding format
16 participants will be divided into two groups with eight participants in each. The seeding will be held according to the world rating by ESL. The first competition will be taking place in the Bo1 format while the others — in Bo3. Three best teams from each group will make it to the playoff. Top 1 will be sent to the semifinal while the second and the third places will set off from the quarter final. The final stage of the tournament will have quarter-finals and semi-finals in the Bo3 format. The grand final will be held in the series up to three wins.
Prize pool
The prize pool will consist of $500,000. Half of it will be received by the winner of the competition. The team taking the second position will receive $100,000. The teams taking 3-4 place will get prizes of $40,000 each, and those who will get placed on the 5-6 position in the tournament bracket will win $15,000 apiece. The teams that will not make it out of the group stage will get the smallest prizes: $7,000 for 7-8 places, $4,000 for 9-12 places and $2,500 for teams that will win 13-16 position in the tournament bracket.
The coverage of the tournament
Oliver James Borg ‘OJ Borg’ D'Anastasi will be the main host of IEM Katowice 2020 and the studio of analytics will be headed by Tres ‘stunna’ Saranthus. Chad ‘SPUNJ’ Burchill, Jacob ‘Pimp’ Winneche, and Mathieu ‘Maniac’ Quiquerez will be analyzing matches.
We will be following the events on a screen during matches with the comments by Henry ‘HenryG’ Greer, Alex ‘Machine’ Richardson, Anders Blume, Jason ‘Moses’ O'Toole, Jason ‘JKaplan’ Kaplan, and Tom ‘Tombizz’ Bissmire.
Frankie Ward will make interviews with players and reports from the venue. We will be watching CS:GO matches observed by Alexander ‘Rushly’ Rush and Jake ‘Jak3y’ Elton.