IEM Cologne Play-In Stage: A Tournament Preview

The Intel Extreme Masters will commence on the 5th of July at 9:00 a.m. GMT, and, as the next big CS:GO international event with $1,000,000 worth of prize pool and 6,400 Circuit Points on the line, a lot of excitement is already brewing in both the gaming and betting community.

Whether you’re betting on CS:GO or just hoping to see what’s about to go down in the play-in stage of the tournament, we’ve got you covered. We’ll be taking a look at specific teams that have odds that will likely affect bettors’ decisions and affirm viewers’ expectations.

Favourites – Team Vitality, Heroic, BIG

Team Vitality, Heroic, and BIG are among the most famous teams in the CS:GO competitive scene, and the only reason they got sent to the play-in stage is that there’s not enough room for everyone to be directly qualified for the group stage. According to ESL’s world ranking itself, these four are on Rank 7, 8, and 10, respectively, as of the 28th of June. Let’s take a look at why even the best esports bookmakers won’t give these teams any higher than 1.20 odds in the play-in.

Team Vitality

Team Vitality has been lagging behind the elites since the beginning of the year, finishing only 1st-3rd once in the BLAST Premiere: Spring Groups in February. It was downhill from there. In the PGL Major Antwerp, the team would finish 9th-11th, and in the IEM Dallas, they managed to improve a little bit by finishing 7th-8th place.

These weren’t admirable achievements, for sure. Recently, however, Team Vitality surprised fans and bettors alike by taking 2nd place in the BLAST Premiere: Spring Finals, where they defeated ENCE and G2 Esports, teams that were considered (and still are) to be its superiors. They got 2-0ed by NAVI in the grand final though, but nobody’s really throwing stones at them for it.

Has it all been upset or has something awakened in Team Vitality? We don’t know. What we know is that only 4 teams out of 16 from the play-in stage will proceed to the group stage, and Team Vitality has to be one of them.

Heroic

Heroic’s most recent achievement is winning the Pinnacle Cup Championship, where they defeated BIG and Astralis, the last 2 teams on the list. In the lower bracket final and the grand final, Heroic 2-0ed both of them. Some of the matches were close, but most were one-sided enough to indicate why Heroic is bound to win a ticket to the group stage next to Team Vitality, not other lesser teams.

BIG

Coming as the next favourite is BIG. They don’t really have a lot under their belt right now. In the PGL Major Antwerp, they finished an underwhelming 12th-14th and only 7th-8th in the BLAST Premiere: Spring Finals. Perhaps the only upside they have is that they managed 3rd-4th in the IEM Dallas, where they got put down by Cloud9.

Bet365 is offering 1.12 for BIG to win against ORDER (5.50). There’s a ridiculous spread that clearly shows confidence on the bookies’ part. For more information on the sportsbook, be sure to peruse our Bet365 Esports review.

Outside Bet – paiN Gaming

For the outside bet, we’re looking at paiN Gaming. They’ve been performing really well in A-Tier and B-Tier tournaments for the past couple of months. Most notably, they won 1st in the BLAST Premiere: Spring American Showdown 2022 and the ESL Challenger League Season 41: North America just several days ago. They even managed to make it to the BLAST Premiere: Spring Groups (though they didn’t perform there very well and finished last).

We reckon the 3.00 odds that most bookies are offering for them to win against MOUZ (1.30) is more than generous. If they’ve proven they could do enough to earn a seat with the high rollers, there’s really no reason to be confident they won’t be able to do it again.

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Conclusion

As we’ve mentioned, 16 teams are fighting for 4 tickets to the group stage. Based on what we’ve seen, bookmakers are expecting Team Vitality, Heroic, BIG, and Astralis to get those slots. It’s easy to be confident during the play-in stage since these semi-elites are fighting only second-rate teams. But thinking all second-rate teams aren’t capable of making a breakthrough is a mistake. So, pick your matches wisely.