Following a long tour, the competitive season for StarCraft II esports is drawing to a conclusion. Accordingly, the IEM Katowice 2022 SCII event is almost here and we can’t contain our excitement. Read on as we provide all the viewership details for this final tournament of the season!
Event Background
To reiterate, this is the final tournament of the ESL Pro Tour 2021/22. Indeed, for those unaware, the ESL Pro Tour is the highest level of competitive SCII, hosting multiple events across the year. And now, it all ends next week via this Masters Championship 2022, also known as IEM Katowice.
Organized by ESL, competitive CS:GO fans will recognize the venue for CS:GO, but it’s also the same place for StarCraft II.
Kicking off on 23rd February at the Offline Katowice Arena, ESL is offering $500,000 on the line for the best competitors in the world. Leading up until 27th February, there’s a tonne of competition to go through.
Speaking of the best competitors in the world, find all the competitors listed below:
- Maru – 2021 DH Masters Winner
- Reynor – 2021 DH Masters Winner
- Serral – 2021 DH Masters Winner
- Cure – 2021 GSL Code S Winner
- Dark – 2021 GSL Code S Winner
- Trap – South Korea Standing
- Bunny – South Korea Standing
- Solar – South Korea Standing
- Zest – South Korea Standing
- Dream – South Korea Standing
- ShoWTimE – Europe Standings
- Clem – Europe Standings
- Lambo – Europe Standings
- HeRoMaRinE – Europe Standings
- Neeb – North America Standings
- Scarlett – North America Standings
- TIME – China Standings
- Zoun – Combined Standings
- 4 TBD Players from Round of 36
Let’s dig right into the format!
Format
As always, competitive StarCraft always promises an interesting format.
Kicking things off, we have a form of ‘Play-In’ called ‘Round of 36’. Here, 16 additional players will be competing in a double elimination bracket in order to earn the 4 spots available to seed into the main tournament Group Stage. This will all take place on February 23rd.
Anyways, moving on we have the Group Stage of the Main Event, running from 24-25th February. Accordingly, here four groups of six will compete in a round robin with BO3 matches. They’ll be competing for some serious stakes, with first place seeding to the Quarterfinals and second and third place moving to Round of 12.
Here are the Groups right now:
- A – Rogue, Cure, Solar, Neeb, Dream, TBD
- B – Serral, Dark, TIME, SpeCial, ShoWTimE, TBD
- C – Trap, Zest, HeRoMaRinE, Bunny, Lambo, TBD
- D – Maru, Clem, Reynor, Scarlett, Zoun, TBD
Making it to the Playoffs, here’s where things ramp up. With a final single-elimination bracket, each match except for the BO7 finals will be a BO5. Rounding off the tournament from February 26-27th, it all looks to end in epic fashion.
Schedule for the IEM Katowice 2022 SCII
In terms of schedule, we highly recommend visiting the event page which ESL will likely keep up to date.
Watch the IEM Katowice 2022 SCII on esportsguide
You can also watch the IEM Katowice 2022 SCII live stream via our very own website. Providing an extensive list of the biggest esports together with streams for each esports match live today or upcoming matches.
Predictions
So, who’s going to be crowned our World Champion for SCII?
Let’s take a look at last year’s standings to gain some insight:
- #1 – Reynor
- #2 – Zest
- #3-4 – Maru
- #3-4 – PartinG
- #5-8 – Dark, Rogue, TY, Clem
Bearing this in mind, we’d like to favour Reynor, but we’d also like to point out that Maru and Rogue have dominated the EPT Points this past season.
For more esports news, visit: https://www.esportsguide.com/news