In addition, because Valve reduced the number of direct Major invites from sixteen to fourteen, the third-place teams at each respective Minor advanced to a third-place qualifier to send two more teams to the Major.
Two teams from each qualifier moved on to the Major. The Major cycle began with four Minors, or regional qualifiers: Americas, Asia, CIS, and Europe. At the time, Fnatic had the most Major titles, with three. The defending champions were Astralis, after winning their second championship at the FACEIT Major: London 2018.
#NATUS VINCERE LOGO PROFESSIONAL#
In professional CS:GO, the Valve-sponsored Majors are the most prestigious tournaments. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series. In addition, Astralis became just the third team after Fnatic and the Brazilian roster of Luminosity Gaming and SK Gaming to win consecutive Majors.Ĭounter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve. Astralis swept ENCE in two maps to take its third Major title and tie Fnatic for most Majors titles. The grand finals featured the world's number one team Astralis, which defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas and MIBR in the playoffs, and the underdog ENCE, which defeated the world's number two in Team Liquid and the world's number three in Natus Vincere. Renegades, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and ENCE advanced to the playoff stage to become Legends for the following Major. This event was the start of the second season of the Intel Grand Slam.Īstralis, Team Liquid, MIBR, Natus Vincere, and FaZe Clan were incoming Legends who retained that status, while BIG, HellRaisers, and compLexity Gaming were knocked out in the New Legends stage. It was hosted by ESL, their first Major since 2016. It featured a US$1,000,000 prize pool, the seventh consecutive Major with that prize pool. The top eight teams from the London Major ("Legends") received a bye to the second phase of the group stage while the other sixteen teams ("Challengers") had to go through the first and second group stages in order to reach the playoffs. Fourteen teams would qualify for the IEM Katowice Major 2019 based on their top fourteen placements from the last Major, the FACEIT Major: London 2018, while another ten teams would qualify from their respective regional qualifiers. It was held in Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland from February 13 – March 3, 2019. The Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Katowice Major 2019, also known as IEM Katowice Major 2019 or Katowice 2019, was the fourteenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship and the world championship for the thirteenth season of the Intel Extreme Masters.