IEM Katowice 2024 - Qualifier Preview (Dec 5-10)

IEM Katowice 2024 – Qualifier Preview (Dec 5-10)

Time Stamp: December 4, 2023 6:28 PM

by Wax

The IEM Katowice 2024 main event is still two months away, but you’ll have to tune in this week to catch all of the high-stakes competition related to the tournament.

In a major format change, the round-of-36 play-in stage has been replaced with a weeklong online qualifier, which is set to be played from December 5-10. Only five players have secured main event seeds through winning championships during the season, so this qualifier will determine the nineteen other players who will win the right to play at Katowice (the 24-player main event format and total prize pool are unchanged from 2023).

Given the prestige of IEM Katowice—not to mention $500,000 in prize money—you can bet that the players will be going all-out in these matches. A key factor is that the three server qualifiers are not region-locked, meaning players can sign up for all three servers. This means that the American server qualifier—which takes place after the Asia/Korea and Europe qualifiers are finished—could be especially intense, with players from every region competing for the final tickets to Katowice.

Schedule & Format

Note: The qualifiers are not region-locked.

IEM Katowice seeded players: Astrea, Maru, Oliveira, Serral, Solar

Asia and Korea (Dec 5-6):

  • Open Qualifier: Tuesday, Dec 05 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
    • Top 8 advance to closed qualifier
    • Single-elimination
    • Best-of-3 until final round
    • Final round is best-of-5
  • Closed Qualifier: Wednesday, Dec 06 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
    • 16-player double-elimination (8 seeds + 8 open qualifier players)
    • Top 8 qualify for IEM Katowice
    • Seeded players: Bunny, ByuN, Classic, Creator, Cure, Dark, GuMiho, herO
    • Best-of-3 until qualification rounds
    • Qualification rounds are best-of-5

Europe (Dec 7-8):

  • Open Qualifier: Thursday, Dec 07 6:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
    • Top 8 advance to closed qualifier
    • Single-elimination
    • Best-of-3 until final round
    • Final round is best-of-5
  • Closed Qualifier: Friday, Dec 08 6:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
    • 16-player double-elimination (8 seeds + 8 open qualifier players)
    • Top 7 qualify for IEM Katowice
    • Seeded players: Clem, HeroMarine, Lambo, Reynor, ShoWTimE, SKillous, Spirit, Elazer*
      • *While an official decision has yet to be made, Elazer is the next highest ranking player should MaxPax forfeit as presumed.
    • Best-of-3 until qualification rounds
    • Qualification rounds are best-of-5

Americas (Dec 9-10):

  • Open Qualifier: Sunday, Dec 10 12:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
    • Top 4 advance to closed qualifier
    • Single-elimination
    • Best-of-3 until final round
    • Final round is best-of-5
  • Closed Qualifier: Monday, Dec 11 12:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
    • 16-player double-elimination (8 seeds + 8 open qualifier players)
    • Top 4 qualify for IEM Katowice
    • Seeded players: Kelazhur, Scarlett, SpeCial, trigger
    • Best-of-3 until qualification rounds
    • Qualification rounds are best-of-5

Seeds: Dark, ByuN, Cure, herO, GuMiho, Classic, Creator, Bunny
Notable unseeded players (home region): SHIN, DRG, Stats, NightMare, Ryung, soO, TY, sOs, Firefly, Nice, Cyan
Notable unseeded players (other regions): ShoWTimE, MaNa, Gerald, Trigger (these players are currently signed up but not confirmed to play)

The Asia-Korea qualifier has eight Katowice spots up for grabs, but four of them should be spoken for. Dark, ByuN, herO, and Cure have proven themselves to be dominant players in this kind of online-cup environment, where they regularly make short work of the other players on the qualifier sign-up list.

However, I do have some minor concerns about herO and ByuN considering the heightened stakes of this event. herO has been an absolutely confounding player since IEM Katowice, looking like the world’s best Protoss in lower-stakes online events while he slumps hard in major tournaments. As for ByuN, we’re all too familiar with his bouts of wrist pain in high-leverage situations. Considering that the pressure level of this qualifier will be close to that of a major event, I’m not 100% confident that these two will be able to keep their composure.

Depending on how you rate herO and ByuN, that leaves four or six more slots for the rest of the players. The race for these slots should be quite competitive, featuring most of the GSL Code S middle class. The ostensible favorites—GuMiho, Classic, Creator, Bunny, DRG, and SHIN—are all high peak players who suffer from inconsistency, and they could easily be upset if they draw an unlucky match-up or are just in bad condition on the day of games. It’s not just players like NightMare and Ryung who are nipping at their heels—even a player like Firefly or Nice could cause a mid-bracket surprise with the right match-up.

On that note, my broad prediction is that PvP will cause at least one minor upset in terms of Asian server qualification. Creator and Classic are the players I see as especially vulnerable, and if they fall to the lower bracket, they could get BO3’d out of the tournament by the likes of NightMare, Stats, Firefly, or even ShoWTime if he actually decides to endure the latency and play.

Seeded players: Clem, Reynor, HeroMarine, ShoWTimE, Lambo, Spirit, SKillous, Elazer (pending decision on MaxPax’s forfeited seed)
Notable unseeded players (home region): Harstem, MaNa, Krystianer, uThermal, GunGFuBanDa, Gerald, Bly, Goblin
Notable unseeded players (other regions): Bunny, ByuN, Classic, Gerald, Trigger (these players are currently signed up but not confirmed to play)

I don’t think anyone would object to me making Clem and Reynor my two, 100% locks in the European qualifier, which leaves the other players to fight for five remaining slots. Compared to Asia/Korea, I see much less of a challenge coming from the non-seeded players, so there’s a good chance this becomes the six of HeroMarine, ShoWTimE, Lambo, SKillous, Spirit, and Elazer fighting for five spots. Really, any of them could become the unlucky odd man out—I’ll predict it to be whoever draws the closest start to Clem and Elazer in the bracket. For wildcards, you could put Harstem in the mix, if you believe the Epoch of H is truly upon us (he recently had a solid RO8 showing at HSC 24). Wayne has shown some strong upset potential in online play as well, but it’s hard to see him winning a full BO5 against one of the favorites.

The huge wrench in the works would be the Korean contingent showing up to play. We’ve seen players like Oliveira and Firefly do reasonably well in the ESL Open EU cup through some VPN wizardry, and someone like Bunny or Classic (after failing to qualify through Korea) would have a very reasonable chance of pushing out one of the EU regulars for a qualification spot.

Seeded players: Scarlett, Kelazhur, SpeCial, Trigger
Notable unseeded players: EVERYONE who hasn’t made it through by this point

For me, this is THE highlight of qualifier week. ESL has tried to have “Last Chance” qualifiers for Katowice in the past, only for them to become almost meaningless due to poor calibration of the point system. This American server qualifier projects to be a true last chance qualifier, with all the stragglers from Asia and Europe invading the American server for one final shot.

For the sake of example, I assumed all the players from EU and Asia would qualify in order of their Aligulac.com rating, which gave me this list of players potentially playing in the Americas qualifier: Scarlett, Kelazhur, SpeCial, Trigger, SHIN, DRG, Stats, NightMare, Ryung, soO, TY, sOs, SKillous, Wayne, Strange, Harstem, MaNa, Krystianer, uThermal, GungFuBanDa, Firefly, Cyan, DnS, Bly… it goes on and on.

That would surely end up being one of the most unpredictable tournaments ever. Seriously, who would you even say is the best player from that combined list? Probably SHIN/RagnaroK? But he’d be far, far from a lock—several players would have a good shot to take him down in a BO5.

Due to the expected parity of players, and the sheer desperation everyone will be playing with, I already anticipate that this will be the most entertaining of the three qualifiers.

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