Heroic and Natus Vincere have secured their early entry into the semi-finals in the "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" tournament IEM Katowice. In the first big LAN event of the year, the teams put themselves at the top of their groups and go into the playoffs as favorites.

"Of course, it means a lot to us. Katowice was the first big title I won with the team," Navi announcer Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov said in an interview after the last group match. "We will give everything to win this tournament, because we are in our own era at the moment.»

FaZe awards match points against Navi

Navi had come up short in the final of his own group with 2:1 (13:16; 16:13; 22:19) faze prevailed, but the defending champion did not have it easy. At FaZe, newcomer Robin "ropz" had only returned to the lineup on Saturday after a corona infection, but only narrowly missed the victory against Navi.

Heroic also showed himself in top form. After recent rather mixed results, the Danish team, among other things, defeated the new lineup of Team Vitality, which missed the playoffs, and secured itself with a clear 2:0 (16:10; 16:5) against Virtus.pro also the semi-final entry.

Mouz with a substitute player without luck

Mouz, on the other hand, failed to make the playoffs. For the first time since 2017, the Hamburg organization entered Jon "JDC" de Castro from its own junior team with a German player, as a player with Corona had dropped out. Despite the circumstances, the team made it to the main tournament and eliminated OG, but failed in the Lower Bracket with a score of 0:2 to ninjas in pajamas.