IEM Katowice groups announced

Coming in just ten days is the next installment of the Intel Extreme Masters, this time bringing the show to Katowice, Poland. Today, we get to see the first update on what the group stage will look like.

The twelve currently known and well renowned players already know their places in the grand scheme of things as they learn some of their opponents and even before the finalization of the group line-ups one can easily get excited about all of them.

Group A has hosted Moonglade, Grubby and Snute. The two Europeans are well known in the community with Snute's run in the final months being particularly impressive and Moonglade looks to have a hard time against the competition. Just next door is a Group B, somewhat lacking the star level of the others but being rich on potential with Killer, Bly and Lucifron in it, all of whom showed marginal improvement towards the end of 2012.

All eyes are set on Group C, however, currently an all-zerg pool with two of the strongest foreigners in Stephano and Nerchio in it, along with JookTo. With both powerhouses in more than decent shape, it is likely that whoever comes from the qualifiers and the open bracket will be in the position of an underdog.

Finally, there's Group B which has welcomed Golden, eager to represent his new team StarTale, Lucifron, who will look forward to build up on his extraordinary 2012 results, and Kas who flies to Poland after a long absence from offline tournaments.



As is IEM tradition, top three of each group will advance to the playoffs, with the winners seeded directly into the semi-finals. The competition itself begins January 18th with $29,000 on the line.

We will be bringing you more information as the Korean qualifiers hit their end.

Source: ESL World