After two days of fierce competition, Dream, Bunny, ByuN, and RagnaroK emerged as the four victors of the double elimination play-in bracket to win spots in the main event of IEM Katowice 2021.
Bunny continued his run of good form from DH: Last Chance and GSL Super Tournament 1, taking down Elazer, Kelazhur, and RagnaroK to secure his second ever group stage berth at IEM Katowice. Back in the 2019 edition of Katowice, Bunny narrowly failed to escape the group stage by a one-map margin to soO, with soO going on to win the entire tournament.
Speaking of Katowice 2019, RagnaroK's playoff was one of the surprises of the tournament. Now, he has a chance to try and match or top his personal best performance. A loss to Bunny in the upper bracket of the RO36 put RagnaroK on the ropes, but he recovered to win a group stage spot with a convincing 3-1 over Armani in the final match of the lower bracket.
In Dream's case, this marks his first time playing in the main event of IEM Katowice in its current incarnation. Dream actually took second place at IEM Katowice back in 2013, but at the time Katowice was a satellite event to the World Championship in Hanover.
Most fans predicted ByuN to advance to the group stage, but few would have expected his Ro36 journey to be so arduous. ByuN started the Ro36 with an unlucky draw against Dream, and a 1-2 loss sent him straight down to the lower bracket. While ByuN came within a map of elimination on two occasions, he managed to survive a gauntlet of DongRaeGu, Cyan, Hurricane, and sOs to reach the main event.
Round of 24 matches are set to begin on Monday, Feb 22 2:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) with a stacked Group A, which has become even more competitive with the addition of ByuN from the RO36.
The round group stage will be played from Feb 22-25, with the top twelve players advancing to the playoffs.
There's something wrong with group A and B, there seem to be some sort of non-Terran players in it? I hope ESL can look into this before the group stage starts.
I gues 4 Koreans or 3 Koreans/ 1Foreigner was the most likely outcome for the Play in Stage. But not a single Foreigner in a qualifying match after that weired start in the opening matches is a bit disapointing for the EU Boys..
Glad for the Terran guys, I would have preferred Elazer but when you don't beat Armani in mirror it's tough; Ragnarok deserved.
Group A is complete madness, both Showtime and Clem are historically weaker against T but at least Clem has recently shown to have improved alot much in mirror.
On February 22 2021 07:12 Xain0n wrote: Glad for the Terran guys, I would have preferred Elazer but when you don't beat Armani in mirror it's tough; Ragnarok deserved.
Group A is complete madness, both Showtime and Clem are historically weaker against T but at least Clem has recently shown to have improved alot much in mirror.
Consistent with this post, I really think Clem's TvT is almost as good as his TvZ is, at this point in time. He has had some convincing results and play recently, though I am operating strictly off memory of watching them.
Ouch that racial distribution! 8/11 terrans in A+B and 6/7 Protoss in C+D, no P in group B... At least the Zergs are spread evenly, but they are also the least represented.
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/EPT/Katowice2021/katowicero24groups2.jpg)
