G2 Esports beats Heroic to win the IEM Katowice 2023 championship.
G2 Esports won the Intel Extreme Masters event in Katowice, Poland, by defeating Heroic 3-1 in the best-of-five grand final on Sunday.
Champions, G2 Esports remained unbeaten in a showdown between the tournament’s two top teams, both of whom had won their respective groups in the previous round to secure byes into the semifinals, to win the $400,000 first prize and an automatic place into the $1 million IEM Cologne event this summer.
Heroic accepted a second-place award of $180,000.
G2 seized a 2-0 lead with two close victories, 16-12 on Nuke and 16-13 on Mirage. Heroic went on the board first, defeating Inferno 16-11, but G2 sealed the title by defeating Ancient 16-7.
G2 was led by Nemanja “huNter-” Kovac of Bosnia & Herzegovina, who had 82 kills and a plus-18 kills-to-deaths differential. Australia’s Justin “jks” Savage came in second with 80 kills and a plus-18 rating, tying his teammate.
Denmark’s Casper “cadiaN” Moller led Heroic with 75 kills and a plus-7, the team’s only player with a positive K-D.
The $1 million Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competition kicked off on February 1 with a 16-team, double-elimination play-in round to select the remaining eight slots in the group stage. All first-round play-in matches were best-of-three, while all other play-in matches were best-of-three.
From Saturday through Tuesday, two eight-team groups competed in a double-elimination style of best-of-three matches. G2 and Heroic, the group winners, proceeded to the single-elimination playoff semifinals. The runners-up in each group, Natus Vincere and Team Vitality, advanced to the playoff quarterfinals as high seeds, while Team Liquid and Outsiders advanced as low seeds.
Prize money for the Intel Extreme Masters Katowice:
- $400,000, IEM Cologne berth — G2 Esports
- Heroic $180,000
$80,000 — Natus Vincere, Team Liquid
5-6. $40,000 — Outsiders, Team Vitality
$24,000 – FaZe Clan, Complexity Gaming
$16,000 – IHC Esports, Team Spirit, Fnatic, and OG
$10,000 — Cloud9, BIG, MOUZ, and Ninjas in Pyjamas
$4,500 — ENCE, Sprout, MIBR, and FURIA Esports
$2,500 — Permitta Esports, Evil Geniuses, Grayhound Gaming, and paiN Gaming.