Heroic and Virtus.pro advanced to the Group A upper-bracket final with wins during Friday’s Group Stage action at IEM Katowice 2022 in Katowice, Poland.
Heroic swept Team Vitality 2-0 and Virtus.pro fended off Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 in order to advance. When Heroic and Virtus.pro play on Sunday, the winner will take first place in Group A and receive a bye to the semifinals of the Playoff stage.
Also in Group A, MOUZ beat OG 2-0 and Gambit Esports held on to beat Copenhagen Flames 2-1 in the lower bracket, eliminating OG and Flames from the competition.
Group B wrapped up the first round of its upper bracket with Natus Vincere prevailing 2-1 over ENCE and Fnatic coming back to beat G2 by the same score.
The Group Stage is the second of three stages of IEM Katowice. Following the Play-In stage, which concluded Wednesday, the top eight teams from that stage join eight previously qualified teams in the Group Stage, a double-elimination bracket where all matches are best-of-three. The top three teams from Groups A and B reach the single-elimination Playoff bracket, with the best-of-five grand final set for Feb. 27.
Heroic opened with a 16-12 win over Vitality on Mirage before a 22-18 overtime win on Inferno to finish it off. Martin “stavn” Lund and Rasmus “sjuush” Beck led the all-Danish Heroic squad with 54 kills apiece, with stavn posting a team-leading kills-to-deaths differential of plus-8. Denmark’s Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen of Team Vitality had game bests of 57 kills and a plus-9 differential.
Virtus.pro won 16-9 on Overpass, but NIP evened things up with a 16-12 victory on Vertigo. They headed to Ancient for the deciding round, with Virtus.pro taking the map 16-8. Latvia’s Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis had 59 kills and Russia’s Dzhami “Jame” Ali posted a plus-18 with 50 kills for VP. Sweden’s Fredrik “REZ” Sterner carried NIP with 56 kills and a plus-4.
MOUZ had little trouble beating OG 16-12 on Nuke and 16-9 on Ancient. Hungary’s Adam “torzsi” Torzsas had a game-high 40 kills and a plus-11 K-D while his MOUZ teammate, David “frozen” Cernansky of Slovakia, put up a plus-15 with 35 kills.
Gambit beat the Flames 16-12 on Overpass before Flames got revenge on Inferno, winning 16-13. But Gambit took the deciding map, Vertigo, with an easy 16-6 result. Gambit’s Sergey ‘Ax1Le’ Rykhtorov rang up 74 kills with a plus-25 differential, while teammate and Russian countryman Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov had a plus-28 with 64 kills.
Natus Vincere opened with a 16-8 win over ENCE on Mirage. ENCE then dominated the second map, Nuke, by a 16-4 score before NaVi broke the tie by taking Overpass 16-14 — rallying from a 9-1 deficit. Ukraine’s Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev led NaVi with 54 kills and a plus-9. ENCE’s Lotan “Spinx” Giladi of Israel posted game highs of 61 kills and a plus-10.
Finally, Fnatic rebounded from a lopsided 16-2 loss to G2 Esports on Nuke by taking Mirage 16-7 and Inferno 16-11. Sweden’s Freddy ‘KRIMZ’ Johansson guided Fnatic with 55 kills and a plus-11 K-D. Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac of Bosnia and Herzegovina put up 56 kills with a plus-11 for G2.
Group Stage play continues Saturday with six matches:
Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. MOUZ (Group A lower bracket)
Team Vitality vs. Gambit Esports (Group A lower bracket)
Natus Vincere vs. FURIA Esports (Group B upper bracket)
FaZe Clan vs. Fnatic (Group B upper bracket)
ENCE vs. Astralis (Group B lower bracket)
Team Liquid vs. G2 Esports (Group B lower bracket)
IEM Katowice 2022 prize pool:
1. TBD — $400,000
2. TBD — $180,000
3-4. TBD — $80,000
5-6. TBD — $40,000
7-8. TBD — $24,000
9-12. TBD — $16,000
13-16. OG, Copenhagen Flames, TBD, TBD — $10,000
17-20. BIG, GODSENT, Movistar Riders, Entropiq — $4,500
21-24. Wisla Krakow, Sprout, Renegades, MIBR — $2,500
–Field Level Media