IEM Cologne Major 2026: NAVI’s tournament debut

The day has finally come: today, NAVI’s CS2 team makes its debut at IEM Cologne Major 2026 — the most prestigious tournament of the first half of the year. Thanks to their high placement in the Valve Ranking, the Born to Win begin their run directly from the third stage of the championship.

To reach the final stage, featuring the 8 strongest teams, we need to secure three victories in the Swiss system.

NAVI’s first opponent will be Spirit: the match starts at 18:30 CEST and will be played in a best-of-3 format. Unlike our team, the Dragons had to start from the second stage. They had no problems there, securing three confident victories — against BB, MIBR, and 9z.

The last time NAVI and Spirit faced each other was in February at IEM Kraków 2026. Back then, our team suffered a 0 : 2 defeat (14 : 16 Mirage, 3 : 13 Dust2).

We hope that today NAVI will delight their fans and kick off their IEM Cologne Major 2026 campaign with a victory.