Intel Extreme Masters Season XII - World Championship - IEM Katowice 2018
A large tournament with the prize pool in the sum of $500,000.
Match schedule
Map pool
The organizer and the tournament
The company ESL has been holding tournaments of different eSports fields for more than 10 years. The series of tournaments Intel Extreme Masters is one of the most significant and recognizable for ESL. Intel Extreme Masters XII — World Championship 2018 Katowice has become a part of Intel Grand Slam. Intel Grand Slam is a series of tournaments, in which a team, which has won at 4 championships Intel Grand Slam, will get a money reward of $1,000,000. The championship will take place from 27 February till 4 March.
The participants
There will be 16 groups which will take part in the tournament. Seven of them have received a direct invitation. The other slots will be dispersed among the winners of qualification in different regions. Astralis, Cloud9, FaZe Clan, G2 Esports, Ninjas in Pyjamas, SK Gaming и Virtus.pro have received the invitation from the organizers, and TyLoo managed to win in Asian qualifying round. The other participants will be known later.
The prize fund
The prize fund of Intel Extreme Masters XII — World Championship 2018 Katowice will be $500,000 and further it will be divided this way:
Place | Prize |
1st | $250,000 |
2nd | $100,000 |
3rd-4th | $40,000 |
5th-6th | $15,000 |
7th-8th | $7,000 |
9th-12th | $4,000 |
13th-16th | $2,500 |
The format of holding the tournament
IEM XII — World Championship 2018 Katowice will start from the group stage which will take place from 27 February till 1 March. During this time there will be 2 groups of 8 teams which will play using GSL-system. The first matches will be played in Bo1-format and the others will be played in the series of Bo3. There will be 3 best collectives from each group in the play-off. The participants, who will come in first in their groups, will reach the semifinal while the collectives. who will come in second and in third, will continue their participation in the quarterfinal of the play-off stage.
The final stage will take place from 2 March till 4 March. In Single Elimination, the participant will play Bo3-matches in the quarterfinal and a series of Bo5 in the grand final.
The place of holding the tournament
Intel Extreme Masters XII — World Championship 2018 Katowice will take place in Spodek Arena which can seat more than 10,000 spectators. In Spodek Arena such stars of the world culture a Metallica, Slipknot, Rammstein, Korn, Ozzy Osbourne, Prodigy, Avril Lavigne, Apocalyptica performed. Also, Spodek Arena was a place of holding Intel Extreme Masters 2016 where the team Fnatic became a champion.