IEM Katowice 2025 Opening Play-In Stage Matches Revealed

It's almost that time of the year again when the best Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) esports teams gather in Poland for a chance at glory and a piece of the $1 million prize pool. I am, of course, talking about Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice 2025, with the Play-In stage (Stage 1) taking place at the end of January 2025.

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The Play-In stage takes place from 29 to 31 January 2025, and since it takes place in Poland, the match times should be great for those in the UK. ESL recently shared the opening matchups. 

Check out the matchups for IEM Katowice 2025's Play-In Stage below in case you can't make them all out via the image above.

• Team Liquid vs. HEROIC
• Imperial Fe vs. FURIA
• Complexity vs. Eternal Fire
• 3DMax vs. FlyQuest
• Astralis vs. MIBR
• paiN vs. Virtus.pro
• GamerLegion vs. SAW
• Wildcard vs. BIG

Some of the most exciting matchups have to be HEROIC taking on Team Liquid and the all-female team Imperial Fe taking on FURIA Esports in the opening matches of IEM Katowice 2025's Play-In. 

The Play-In Stage features a double-elimination bracket format, with all matches being best-of-three. Only eight of the 16 teams will qualify for the main tournament's Group Stage, so squads have a lot on the line.

CS2 esports fans can watch all the action live via the official ESLCS Twitch channel, which I've embedded below for the sake of convenience.

We'll bring you the IEM Katowice 2025 coverage so you remain in the loop. 

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