IEM Cologne 2021 Confirmed as First CS:GO LAN Tournament in 16 Months

CS:GO is finally set to return to LAN with the upcoming IEM Cologne 2021 after more than 16 months. The last such CS:GO event had taken place in February 2020, as IEM Katowice was converted to a studio competition without any live audience mid-tournament. Since then the top-tier of competitive Counter-Strike has been played online, multiple teams claiming the throne but not a single lineup able to dominate for a long period of time. With the $1,000,000 USD in-person event all set to take place from 6-18 July in Cologne, teams are gearing up as CS:GO returns to LAN in less than two weeks time as a studio event.

IEM Cologne 2021 - CS:GO Event Confirmed to Take Place on LAN

IEM Cologne 2021 featuring a huge 1 Million USD prize pool is all set to take place as a studio event without a live audience in Cologne. A total of 24 teams will be participating in this tournament, 8 directly quafied teams along with 16 more that will be fighting through the Play-In stage to qualify ahead in the competiion.

Play-In Stage

The first phase of the tournament will take place from 6-7 July, with only 8 of the 16 competing teams making it through to the Group Stage. The Play-In's will be following a double elimination format, with all the opening matches being a single game decider. All the remaining matches will be undergoing a best-of-three series.

Group Stage

This will be taking place from 8-11 July. The 16 remaining teams will be divided into two groups of 8 teams each. Both these groups will be facing a double-elimination bracket and all the matches played in it will be a best-of-three series.

The qualification process will be as follows,

• The two teams that win their respective groups will directly advance to the semifinals.

• The runners-up will advance to the quarterfinals as the High Seeds.

• The teams that take the third position will also advance to the quarterfinals, but as the Low Seeds.

Playoffs

The final stage of the tournament will take place from 16-18 July, following a single-elimination format where all the matches will be best-of-three series except for the grand final, which will be hosting a five game faceoff.

The participating teams will be earning both prize money and the valuable ESL Pro Tour, BLAST Premier circuit points. While all the 24 competing teams will get a piece of the total prize money, only the top 20 teams will be awarded ESL Pro Tour points, and the top eight BLAST Premier points.

Apart from IEM Cologne 2021, a live audience CS:GO tournament will also be taking place later this year in the form of IEM Winter 2021, scheduled to take place from 2-12 December in Asia.