We begin our CS:GO IEM Katowice 2020 predictions by taking a look at the favourite, Astralis at 2/1 with William Hill. They have already claimed one title in the Intel Gram Slam season and the Danish team will believe they can make it two in Poland.

1. Iem Katowice 2020 Winner
2. Iem Katowice 2020 Starcraft 2

Virtus.pro Betting Predictions 2021 IEM XV Katowice Play-In Match Analysis By Donnie Mitchell in Esports — Feb 24th, 2021 3:42pm PST February 24, 2021 5 Min. Read our IEM Katowice 2020 betting tips. Compare the best betting odds and see who can win IEM Katowice CS:GO tournament! Rogue becomes champion of IEM Katowice 2020 Even though this year’s edition of the biggest StarCraft II tournament outside WCS, IEM Katowice 2020, was due to concerns regarding coronavirus empty, it was, as usual, packed with thrilling battles and surprising moments.

The CSGO competitive scene is enjoying plenty of action these days! We’ve already had a massive event in January, BLAST Premier Global Final, and now we got an even bigger one to enjoy and talk about! IEM XV Katowice World Championship is the special occasion, bringing forth $1,000,000 in prize money alongside 24 competitors. It starts next Tuesday and will run through the 28^th. Such a massive event is always going to stir up quite a bit of dust, with betting on IEM XV Katowice already trending within the CSGO betting waters.

• Competing Teams: 24
• Dates: 16^th to 28^th February
• Location: EU Online
• Stream: IEM Twitch Channel
• Outright Favorites: Astralis, NaVi, Vitality
• Dark Horses: G2, BIG, Virtus.pro

Where to Start Betting on IEM XV Katowice?

First things first – where can you bet on IEM XV Katowice next week? What are some good places for you to invest your money in?

Finding esports bookmakers in this day and age is a fairly simple task. Finding good esports bookmakers, on the other hand, not so much! While competition is good for the industry, the sheer quantity of bookmakers can sometimes be a double-edged sword.

Platforms of questionable qualify have flooded the market and are running the experience of brand-new bettors. I’m not trying to scare you here, I’m just stating the cold hard facts.

If you’re serious about betting on IEM XV Katowice, be it for spicing up your watching experience or to earn a bit of cash on the side, take my advice and check out this in-depth CSGO betting guide! It won’t bore you to death with needless facts – just the stuff you’ll actually need to place your first-ever CSGO bet.

Tournament Format

We’re talking about a colossal event here, and its format perfectly depicts that immense size. Not only does IEM XV World Championship feature 24 teams, but a dynamic competition system that introduces two “classes” of teams.

As for the matchup system, we’re mostly looking at bo3 matches. The opening round of the play-in stage is bo1; the grand final is bo5 – everything in between is good old bo3! A true CSGO bettors’ paradise, to say the least!

IEM XV Katowice Betting Preview Heavy Favorites

If you’re going to be betting on IEM XV Katowice next week, there are some teams you should be aware of. Four of five featured teams start from the group stage, while the fifth one (Virtus.pro) have to go through the Play-In bracket.

Let’s take a closer look!

Astralis

According to online bookmakers, Astralis are the prime candidates for lifting the IEM XV virtual trophy and snatching the $400,000 grand prize. And while I do think they belong to the top-three shortlist, NaVi seems like a far better candidate for the top spot… unless they mess up their BLAST Premier Spring group too, that is.

However, Astralis are by far the most successful IEM Katowice team.

🇩🇰🏆🇩🇰 Stupendous consistency renders @Astralisgg as one of the most successful organisations at #IEM Katowice events dating back to 2016.

The core 3 of @dev1ce, @dupreeh and @Xyp9x at the helm of their success.

How will the Danes fare this year? pic.twitter.com/SdYvt5lCuq

— Intel®ExtremeMasters (@IEM) February 9, 2021

As such, they definitely deserve all the respect they can get. Plus, they’re definitely not a team that gets easily fazed by one or two upsets. Sure, those defeats on BLAST Premier Spring must’ve hurt device and the company, but they’re going to bounce back with style… though that still doesn’t guarantee a win against NaVi… if it comes to that, of course.

G2

Another team, another BLAST Premier Spring mishap. Yep, just a few minutes ago G2 lost against EG in the deciding round of group B. At this pace, the Spring Finals won’t be able to boast with a stellar array of participants.

What went wrong for G2?

Well, honestly… NiKo seems absent. He’s not playing at the pace he closed 2020 off. We saw him post up impressive numbers right after arriving… but his overall performances dropped significantly as time went on.

If he can make a comeback, and we all expect him to, following such poor displays, G2 will definitely be in the title discussions. If not, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see G2 make more roster changes… though I’m not sure which way they’d go – AmaNEk’s form has improved and I don’t think they’re ready to touch the Balkan trio just yet.

Vitality

Next up – Vitality! They had a big oopsie last week, just like Astralis, meaning people don’t really expect that much from them coming into this event. Still, if you’re betting on IEM XV Katowice, you shouldn’t write Vitality off right off the bat. Why is that so? Well, the answer is quite simple – ZywOo!

Even though his team went through two miserable matches on BLAST Premier Spring, ZywOo was at his best. He can only do so much things on his own; he’ll need his teammates to back him up if they are to squeeze through the group stage here and qualify for the playoffs.

There’s big money on the line here, and I’m sure Vitality will bounce back. There’s less pressure on their shoulders, that has to be accounted for too… but we don’t know how exactly is that going to affect them. It’s a double-edged sword, but for the sake of our IEM XV World Championship betting preview, I’ll go out on a limb and say that Vitality is worth betting on in the group stage, except perhaps against the likes of Astralis and Natus Vincere.

NaVi

Iem Katowice 2020 Winner

Natus Vincere are the heavy favorites to win IEM XV Katowice… in my book, at least. They have been nothing but clinical on BLAST Premier Global Final, enjoying another nerve-racking lower-bracket run which ended in them winning the title. The way they pushed through Astralis tells us just what pedigree the current NaVi roster has.

It’s not about pure quality, it’s about teamwork and, above everything else, form! Every NaVi player has been in excellent form for quite a while now. I don’t have to tell you stories about momentum’s importance in CSGO… S1mple is leading the charge, of course, but his teammates got his back no matter who’s on the other end. All you IEM XV Katowice betting enthusiasts listen up – NaVi is the team you’ll want to bet on next week!

Virtus.pro

Virtus.pro is a team you should take good note of, especially if you’re going to be betting on IEM XV Katowice. As stated earlier, they are the only team on this list that has to go through the play-in stage. However, I reckon that won’t faze them one bit; that ought to make them an even bigger threat for top-tier teams waiting in the group stage. YEKINDAR and Jame are definitely the key players in this Virtus.pro roster.

The young Latvian star emerged as one of the best young aces last year, and has successfully transitioned his form to 2021 as well. Under Jame’s mentorship, YEKINDAR already led Virtus.pro to several astonishing title wins last year. Can he give his team more of the same on IEM Katowice XV? Well, he has the quality, that’s for sure!

Outright Betting on IEM XV World Championship

What about outright betting? As mentioned earlier, most CSGO bookmakers have been offering outright betting odds for more than a month now. The odds are solid, let’s have a quick look before diving into a more detailed discussion:

As you can see, Astralis are the favorites, but ever so slightly. Vitality and NaVi are right up there, though I can’t comprehend as to why Heroic have been placed at just +400. I mean sure, they had a solid run of form last year, but the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 saw them return back to their former (read weaker) selves.

I know winning the title isn’t that probable for these two, but at such high odds, it’s definitely worth a shot. After all, BLAST Premier Spring groups have been absolutely packed with surprises – the same could happen on IEM XV Katowice too!

What are IEM events?

The Intel Extreme Masters, commonly referred to as IEM, is one of ESL’s two top level tournament circuits. Typically, each event offers a prizepool above $250,000 and features 16 teams competing in two eight-team GSL-style groups. IEM events are part of the ESL Pro Tour, with each situated at the Masters level or above.

IEM Katowice, also known as the World Championship, has $500,000 in prize pool and will be the first Masters Championship of the ESL Pro Tour. Teams qualified through winning the final three ESL Pro Tour events of 2019, invites or through the traditional qualifier structure.

IEM Katowice odds

The odds below represent the opening matches for IEM Katowice. For a complete list of odds for IEM Katowice, head over to our CS:GO section.

Event previews, strategy articles and all the latest odds

Gunning for glory: Astralis, Natus Vincere, mousesports, Team Liquid

Astralis headline Group A, and are overall the headline team for IEM Katowice. According to HLTV.org’s rankings they remain the best team in the world, owing to their end-of-2019 form where they won three of the four LAN finals they competed in, including IEM Beijing. While their 2020 has started slowly, falling out of their BLAST Premier group in last place, the team remain dangerous.

In Group A, Fnatic, FaZe and Vitality are all in contention for that third playoff spot, all having players who, at one point, lifted Major trophies.

The Danes are the current reigning IEM Katowice champions, having won 2019’s edition while it was classed as a Valve Major. Despite their failure to advance at the year’s first event, and only winning one map all weekend, Nicolai 'dev1ce' Reedtz was still one of the tournament’s top performers, holding a 1.09 rating. Astralis are set to face the new Cloud9 team in their opening match of group A.

Na`Vi came out victorious in the second group of BLAST Premier, coming back from an opening match loss to Vitality. The performance in that opening match, alongside finishing as runners-up at the ICE challenge, evidently lit a fire underneath Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev in his quest to return to being the number one player in the world.

s1mple lost his title at the start of this year to Vitality’s Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut after his explosive debut year. s1mple’s backbreaking performances against Astralis, Vitality and Complexity earned him a 1.36 rating over the entire group. Him and Denis 'electronic' Sharipov, who earned the MVP award at the ICE Challenge, remain Na`Vi’s most dangerous players and will pose a serious challenge for FaZe, who they meet in the opening match.

Iem Katowice 2020 Starcraft 2

mousesports’ slow rise to the top after rebuilding culminated in winning three of their final four events of 2019, winning the first LAN event of 2020 which saw them recently top ESL’s World Rankings before IEM Katowice. The team, led by Finn 'karrigan' Andersen, secured their place in Poland after winning the ESL Pro League finals. They’re currently revelling in the performances of youngsters David 'frozen' Čerňanský and Robin 'ropz' Kool, who came off the ICE Challenge with high ratings, 1.24 and 1.21 respectively.

Liquid are coming off the back of securing a place at the BLAST Premier having finished second in their group after losing to FaZe in two best-of-threes. This continues the form that they finished 2019 off with, a string of second place finishes at S-Tier events.

Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski still acts as the team’s main fragging outlet, and during BLAST Premier he finished as the fifth highest performer of Group A, the highesst non-FaZe player. Alongside Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken, Liquid retain strong fragging power and should easily beat their opening match opponents Virtus.pro.

Dark Horses: Fnatic, FaZe, Vitality, EG, G2, 100 Thieves

In Group A, Fnatic, FaZe and Vitality are all in contention for that third playoff spot. All of the teams hold players who, at one point, lifted Major trophies. Fnatic share the most trophies of these three, with Robin 'flusha' Rönnquist and Jesper 'JW' Wecksell sharing three and Freddy 'KRIMZ' Johansson being a part of two of them. FaZe have two players, Marcelo 'coldzera' David and Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjer, both with two titles each. Vitality have two players with one title each, Richard 'shox' Papillon and Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire.

Astralis are the current reigning IEM Katowice champions, having won 2019’s edition while it was classed as a Valve Major.

The teams all have a strong base of talent, especially if you add the likes of Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač and ZywOo to that list of names. They are still narrowly behind their fellow group mates in placings, but all could cause an upset and force their way into the playoffs. FaZe would have the first chance at this, as they’re set to take on Na`Vi in their opening match.

Group B’s dark horses are Evil Geniuses, G2 and 100 Thieves. All of these three hold fifth, eighth and tenth respectively in the current HLTV.org top ten. Every one of these teams had strong competitive moments in 2019, the EG lineup lifted their first S-Tier titles during the year while G2 and 100 Thieves had strong finishes in other events. The Australians finished in the top four of the Major while the French squad picked up a number of second tier titles, a second place finish at ESL Pro League and a top four at ESL One New York.

• Read more: Looking at Astralis vs Liquid in 2019

The three teams all took part in the same BLAST Premier group, with 100 Thieves and EG finishing as the bottom two teams while G2 went through in first place. This event saw Kenny 'kennyS' Schrub evoke some form of old with a 1.27 rating, closely backed up by Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač and Nemanja 'nexa' Isaković on their charge to victory.

The remaining teams

The remaining teams, NiP, TYLOO, Virtus.pro, MAD Lions, Cloud9 and Renegades, are all unlikely to make waves in Katowice. Barring MAD Lions, they all sit in the bottom five of the futures to take wins. Cloud9 and Virtus.pro saw themselves to a group exit at DreamHack Open Leipzig, an event where Renegades finished runners-up behind BIG. NiP were eliminated in the bottom two of their BLAST Premier group. TYLOO didn’t even initially qualify for the event, only taking up their place after Vici failed to secure visas for all of their players.

In the start of year form, only MAD Lions have a realistic shout of causing a large upset in Group B. Despite a disappointing third/fourth place in Leipzig, they attended the ICE challenge and only lost twice to eventual champions mousesports.

IEM Katowice will start on February 24 and last until March 1. All the action can be found on ESL's Twitch channel.

* Odds subject to change