Katowice has, for a a couple of years now, been the host of major tournaments across a diverse variety of eSports. With the gigantic Spodek Arena and the $250k prize pool it will return to CS:GO as a major event in terms of greatness, but sadly not as a "Valve major", which means that the publisher of CS:GO is not officially supporting and sponsoring this event. This is probably due to timing, since MLG will host its first major event ever on US soil just a month after.
Does this mean Katowice will be less interesting or entertaining?
No major medals will be awarded here, but this is not to say that the event has lost its meaning or importance. Alongside Cluj, Minsk and Cologne, the Spodek Arena in Katowice has been packed to its very limits and served as the host for some of the most viewed matches ever. Just because it is not Valve sponsored does not mean it will not bring us less CS:GO action, and looking at the qualified teams this might actually be an event of epic collisions and clashes never seen before. In Cologne, it was NiP and TSM not showing up 100%, whereas EnVyUs showed a surprisingly strong performance, only to give us a final against Fnatic, which in the end was fairly one-sided. In Cluj it was Fnatic and Virtus.Pro, who fell out early and were caught in a little slump. G2 (now FaZe) then brought us an unforeseen and incredibly amazing match against EnVyUs, who then walked over Natus Vincere in the finals with relative ease. The recent major events have lacked exciting finals, and many matches were decided easily, because of some teams not showing up in the form we would like them to have. But this is about to change.
The legends are strong and ready as ever...
EnVyUs have acquired a new coach and seem to have bridged the little drop-off they had experienced in the end of 2015. Natus Vincere have had a series of high place finishes starting off with the ESEA Pro League finals in December. FaZe have recently cut through Virtus.Pro as if they were butter. Fnatic are back and strong as ever, with Robin ''flusha'' Rönnquist leading the mental charge and Dennis ''dennis'' Edman bringing in the pure aiming power that Markus ''pronax'' Wallsten was never able to give. Luminosity Gaming, perhaps the biggest suprise in terms of top five contenders, the personification of upsets and the best example for a former underdog going huge, they have brought back the tactical meta game that got lost in the final days of the last year, as the likes of EnVyUs, teams with a puggy game style who would usually just run in and rely on fast and spontaneous double-peaking and re-fragging, were leading the charge. Luminosity have, alongside Natus Vincere, shown how much a strat-heavy game play can mean and how effective it can be when executed properly. Duncan "Thorin" Shields has pointed it out himself, how much these kinds of teams have brought back the tactical Counter-Strike. Luminosity has beaten Na'Vi, fnatic, EnVyUs, Astralis, NiP and they are doing this frequently.
...and the few underdogs are in the prime spot to prove themselves now
The underdogs in this tournament will surely have a hard time, but not as hard as it may seem at first. The MongolZ, the Asian surprise, have had a wonderful and fairly dominant time in Taipei, but of course this event is on a whole new level for them. But looking at NiP and mousesports, two teams that have initially suffered under their roster changes, are still looking considerably weak and could potentially be objected to an upset by a new and fresh team of the East with ambition, will, and most of all - a mission.
Will they make it out of the groups? No, surely not. The first three spots within a group will be awarded with an advancement to the quarter- or even directly semi finals, and these spots will be taken by Na'Vi, Luminosity and fnatic, in whichever order. It is highly unlikely that we will see them after the first day, but for a team that has never left the Asian region before, it is a huge achievement to be there, let alone potentially upsetting one or two teams.
What really favours them is the round-robin format. Every team will fight each other team in its respective group once, in a Bo1. It is common knowledge that BO3s are hard to upset for a team that is just really considerably weaker, whereas in a BO1 only some very specific rounds need to be won and few new and original strats can be sufficient to throw an opponent off.
The same can be said for E-Frag, although their group does feature even more contenders for the three spots. If Virtus.Pro were to wake up again after their horrific performance in Leipzig, the group could be filled with teams of more or less equal strength. Their key to success is the same as for the MongolZ, and undoubtedly they will leave the group in order to go home and not to compete on the final day. At the time this feature was written, the NA spot was not decided yet, but even if it were for the best North American team to enter, it would still be pushed into the role of an underdog, because FaZe, EnVy, Astralis and potentially Virtus.Pro as well are just too strong to compete with, although a one map upset for the likes of Cloud9 is not that much hypothetical as it may sound. C9 were close to doing this to the French at the GEC finals, and if they have resolved their issues with their T-side, a 12-3 half in their favour will never again slip out of their hands. CLG even went further in taking out G2, the Frenchmen that were initially climbing to the top and instead were stopped cold hard. But then again, Cloud9 were on the verge of losing to a low-tier CIS squad that was using two substitute players in the same tournament. So this might actually be the team to look out for as E-Frag, in general the NA contender should be more vulnerable than their EU counterparts.
Concluding the second group, there will be a brawl for the three places being awarded since four teams have the abilities to get there. No chances for E-Frag and very minor chances for the NA team to get into the playoffs as they would have to walk over four top ten teams in order to do so. At least in that respect some matches will pan out considerably boring.
So what will be interesting then?
In short - the group matches between the prime contenders and ultimately the playoffs. Fnatic, EnVyUs, Astralis, Na'Vi and Luminosity are competing on the top level right now, it is interesting to notice that they build our top five in the team rankings. These teams are just too close in terms of skill and recent matchups. There is no clear favourite to be picked out.
This makes it hard to write a predictions feature, as much as it makes the matches interesting and unforeseeable. These teams will clash in their respective groups and most surely clash again in the playoffs, and close matches are to be expected. This event can hypothetically serve us the best matches we have seen in for a long time and there have been many great ones so far. Considering that they will be played in a crowded arena, the suspense is getting raised more and more. As the frontrunner to the MLG qualifier, you should now get hyped for the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, which will commence in a little more than two weeks.
