IEM Katowice Major: before the tournament

The "New Legends" stage will begin on February 20!

There are only a few days left until the start of the next stage of the first Major in 2019, which means it’s time to talk about the venue, the format of the competition, and also recall the interesting statistics on the performances of our boys at the Valve sponsored tournaments.

Venue IEM Katowice Major

One of the main championships of Counter-Strike this time will be held in Katowice (Poland). In 2014, the city of Katowice already hosted a Major, and back then it was just the second tournament that supported Valve. Sixteen participants fought for $ 250,000, and back then the Polish team  Virtus.pro were victorious.

Now let's see what has changed in the past five years. So, the number of participating teams increased from 16 to 24, the prize fund increased to $ 1,000,000, and the championship itself lasts 19 days instead of 3. In addition, ESL did not host any Majors since ESL One Cologne 2016. During these two years, Valve has associated with 4 tournaments.

Let's return to the major in Poland. In total, three different venues will be used for IEM Katowice 2019: ESL Arena ("New Challengers" stage), International Congress Center ("New Legends" stage) and "Spodek" (final stage of the tournament). Spodek is a sports and concert complex in Katowice, opened in 1971. In addition to the Major in 2014, there were annually held competitions in CS:GO, League of Legends and other disciplines.

IEM Katowice Major Format

The format has been changed since the last major. As before, at the “New Challengers” and “New Legends” stages, the Swiss system will take place, but instead of the best of 1, all the decisive matches will last until two victories. So, fights between teams with statistics 2: 0, 2: 1, 2: 2, 1: 2, 0: 2 will be held in the format of best of 3.

Another important change was that for the draw, ESL uses the system, which was first used at IEM Chicago 2018: the championship participants will be given the opportunity to make their own ranking of the teams participating in the competition. In addition to this, the "Buchholz system", which was used for the third to fifth rounds of the FACEIT Major, will be replaced by the ELO rating system.

Further, the rating of teams will change depending on the results in each individual match: the winners will take some rating from the losing team. At later stages, the organizers of the competition will form pairs, based on the established ratings of the teams.

Recall that eight teams from the "New Challengers" stage will advance to the "New Legends" stage. The eight best teams from the "New Legends" will also advance to the "New Champions" stage and guarantees the status of "Legends" for the next Major. Those who failed at the “New Legends” stage will retain the right to start their performance at the next Valve tournament from the “New Challengers” stage, with the exception of the two worst teams with 0–3 game statistics. These teams will be forced to go through a full qualifying cycle, starting with the Minors.

As for the playoffs, the changes here have affected only the draw of teams: as in the group stage, the draw will take place in accordance with the ELO rating system. The format will remain the same: single elimination, best of 3.

Natus Vincere's Major stats

— NAVI took part in 13 Majors, wherein they left the tournament three times in the group stage, five times in the top-8, two times in the top-4 and reached the finals three times.

— In total, in the Majors,  NAVI played 80 maps (45 wins and 35 losses).

– Pistol round win and loss statistics are almost even – 83—77.

— Most of the matches played for  Natus Vincere —  Edward (78), least matches played — electroNic (18).

—  NAVI's most picked map is Inferno (16 games). Cache was picked only once against Team EnVyUs at ESL One Katowice 2015.

— Best winrate on Train (87.5%), with 7 wins and 1 loss. Worst win rate on Nuke: 6 games — 1 win and 5 losses.

— The biggest win was over BIG (16: 1 — Inferno), and the biggest defeat (2: 16) happened in the games against Virtus.pro (Nuke), fnatic (Inferno) and Luminosity (Overpass).

— The best NAVI player in terms of performance stats at the moment is s1mple (rating 1.23), his closest pursuer is electroNic (rating 1.22).