Canadian Counter-Strike team BIG narrowly missed qualifying for the knockout round of the tournament at the IEM Winter 2021. The Berliners were eliminated in the lower bracket semifinals on the last day of the group stage, thus ending the tournament in ninth place.

BIG had started the tournament with a narrow 19:17 victory in the opening match against Faze and thus theoretically had a good chance to secure a place in the playoffs. However, a defeat against the Brazilian team Godsent initially put a stop to them.

In the lower bracket, the Germans then fought a duel on an equal footing against Fnatic. On the decisive third card Nuke, however, BIG forfeited three match points and lost the card with 17:19 in extra time. After the defeat against Fnatic, BIG captain Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz was disillusioned via Twitter: "Definitely not the result we were hoping for. Sometimes you lose and sometimes the others win".

Mouz also get out

The IEM Winter also ends in the group phase for the Hamburg organization Mouz. For the Hamburgers, the tournament was even over on the first matchday of the groups. Mouz started the tournament with a narrow defeat against Vitality.

A few hours later, the Hamburgers lost again, this time against Astralis clearly with 0:2. "The journey to the tournament took longer than the time we then played at the tournament," Mouz player David "frozen" Čerňanský commented on the sobering tournament course of his team.