CS:GO: All about IEM Cologne 2021

Published at 06/07/2021 at 09:44 By Razablan

One of the most important and iconic competitions in the CS:GO scene is back, with a prize pool of $1 million. Here's what you need to know about IEM Cologne 2021.

One of the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive events of the 2021 season, Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2021 kicks off today with the Play-In phase matches.

IEM Cologne will be the first major in-person CS:GO event since the start of the pandemic. The last major championship held in LAN form IEM Katowice 2020, almost fifteen months ago, and it was one of the first sporting events in the old continent to cancel public attendance.

Can Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev and Natus Vincere, winners of that last event, carry home this title?

The tournament will take place without an audience and under heightened security measures. Despite these drawbacks, it is a competition that will not have the controversies around coaches that we've seen in recent months in online formats, and will see players highly motivated to win.

All this comes in a moment with an air of change in the scene. Although s1mple and his Na'Vi side are still scary, Gambit and Heroic have managed to grow a lot during this online stage. IEM will be the litmus test that many of us expected.

Of course, this is the tournament in which the legendary Astralis arrives practically undone, amid strong rumors of coach and architect of this team's success, Danny "zonic" Sørensen, leaving the team.