Katowice has become an absolute staple of the world of competitive Counter-Strike, as the ESL has taken the best teams and players back to the Polish city for a major event for years now. This is happening in 2025 too, with an Intel Extreme Masters tournament slated to kick off in a few weeks and end in early February.
With this in mind and coming up, the ESL has now affirmed the full list of teams who will be attending and competing in the major tournament. Eight of the biggest teams have qualified directly to the second stage of action, whereas a further 16 teams will have to battle it out in Stage 1 in the hopes of earning one of eight additional Stage 2 slots. As per the qualified and invited teams, they are as follows:
Stage 1 Teams:
- Team Liquid
- Furia
- PaiN Gaming
- MiBR
- 3D Max
- Eternal Rage
- Gamer Legion
- Complexity
- SAW
- BIG
- FlyQuest
- Astralis
- Wildcard Gaming
- Virtus.pro
- Imperial FE
- Heroic
Stage 2 Teams:
- G2 Esports
- Team Spirit
- The MongolZ
- Team Vitality
- FaZe Clan
- Mouz
- Natus Vincere
- Team Falcons
IEM Katowice will begin on January 29 and end on February 9, when the $1 million prize pool will be dished out.