CS2 IEM Sydney 2023 Schedule, Stream, Teams & More

CS2’s official release on September 27, 2023, felt underwhelming in the first week, but the title is slowly making its comeback. The game’s competitive scene has also gone through a change and as fans can see the top CS: GO teams are already making a transition to the new title.

CS2’s first major LAN event went underway on October 16, 2023, in Sydney, Australia. Here, in this article you will find everything there is to know about Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Sydney 2023, including team rosters, schedule, odds, streams and more.

Tournament Format

Group Stage (October 16-19)

This is the first time Counter-Strike 2 is being played at Tier One Level LAN event, where 16 top CS2 teams are to compete. The participating teams are split into two groups of 8, these teams will play in double elimination groups to determine top 3 teams of each group. These top 3 teams will qualify for the playoffs. Group stage winners will head to semifinals as first seed, the teams that finish second will qualify for the quarterfinals as second seed. The teams that finish third in their group will enter quarterfinals as third seed. Also, opening matches will be held as Bo1 (Best-of-one), while all the following matches including playoffs are Bo3 (Best-of-three)

Playoffs (October 20-22)

CS2 IEM Sydney 2023 playoffs will feature single-elimination bracket with all six qualified teams. The Grand Final will take place October 22, 2023, which will decide the ultimate winner of this major event.

Teams

Group A Group B

5 of the teams competing in CS2 IEM Sydney 2023 are best teams from regional qualifiers: two from Europe and one each Asia, Oceania and North America. Grayhound is a local hero invite to the event and rest of the teams are either from ESL World Ranking or ESL partnered teams.

Some of the players in the event couldn’t make it due to VISA issues and thus have been replaced by either their head coach or a substitute.

Where to watch CS2 IEM Sydney 2023

The tournament is being livestreamed on ESL’s official Twitch and YouTube channels. Additionally, the stream is also available in other languages on channels on popular streamers. Below, you will find stream links to official channels:

Link to the YouTube stream: watch here

Link to the Twitch stream: click here

Prize Pool and Venue

All matches of CS2 IEM Sydney 2023 will be held at Aware Super Theatre in Sydney, Australia. The tournament has a prize pool of $250,000 with winning team receiving $100,000 and a direct entry to IEM Katowice 2024. Below, you will find full breakdown of the prize pool.

Placement Prize

Odds

Just like every other sport, Esports are heavily betted on, this is especially true of majestic tournaments of this size. There are various bookmakers that provide odd for esports and among them, Thunderpick is the best CS2 match betting platform. Thunderpick allows fans to bet with crypto and not only that, but it also supplies instant withdrawals. Aside from that you will find many ways you can bet on the platform, instead of betting on outright winner or loser of matches.

Here are some of the odds for CS2 IEM Sydney 2023