ESL Impact Katowice set to begin

The $100,000 women's tournament will play out over three days from February 10-12.

ESL Impact Katowice, which will act as the first standalone event of 2023 for the women's circuit, is set to kick off on Friday. The $100,000 competition will run for three days and play out alongside IEM Katowice, concluding with a best-of-three grand final on Sunday at 18:00 .

The first of such standalone tournaments was held in Valencia, Spain, back in July 2022. Nigma Galaxy, who have since established themselves as the best women's team in Counter-Strike, reigned supreme at the Spanish competition and didn't drop a single map en route to earning a first-place finish and the $50,000 cash prize.

The tournament is headlined by the Ksenia "⁠vilga⁠" Kluenkova-led roster, who were one of four teams to accept invitations to the completion. The Russian-majority squad are the highest-ranked team to attend the event, and were also recently crowned the Women's Team of the Year at the HLTV Award Show in January.

The remaining three teams to be invited to ESL Impact Katowice include FURIA fe and HSG fe, who finished in second and 3rd-4th place in the ESL Impact League Season 2 Finals in November, respectively, and CLG Red, who have finished in 1st-2nd place in both ESL Impact League Season 1 and 2 North America.

The remaining four berths are made up of teams who successfully traversed their regions' qualifier systems. 9 Pandas Fearless and NAVI Javelins picked up the two spots up for grabs for Europe, while Saints and B4 fe locked in an appearance in Katowice after making their way through the two-team North American and South American closed qualifiers.

The tournament will be held in the IEM Expo area at the MCK. It is situated right next to the Spodek Arena, which is being used to host IEM Katowice, and an underground corridor from the Spodek to the MCK will be open for fans attending the $1,000,000 Polish spectacle. The IEM Expo itself also has free admission, meaning fans will be able to watch and attend the ESL Impact event even if they do not hold IEM Katowice tickets.

The team list for ESL Impact Katowice is as follows:

A total of eight talent members will bring the action to life at the women's competition, some of whom have also been hosting the ongoing IEM Katowice.

The full talent list for ESL Impact Katowice is:

Host

Frankie "⁠Frankie⁠" Ward

Commentators

James "⁠BARDOLPH⁠" Bardolph
Lucy "LucyLuce" Eastwood
Brandon "BDog" Rawlings
Veronique "Vearless" Zonneveld

Analysts

Hege "⁠Hedje⁠" Botnen
Stephanie "⁠missharvey⁠" Harvey

Sidelines

Anastasija "⁠Heccu⁠" Tolmačeva

The full list of matches for ESL Impact Katowice are:

Date	Matches
ESL Impact Katowice 2023
10/02/2023	Nigma Galaxy 10:00 Saints	Match
10/02/2023	B4 fe 11:25 HSG fe	Match
10/02/2023	NAVI Javelins 13:35 CLG Red	Match
10/02/2023	FURIA fe 15:15 9 Pandas Fearless	Match
10/02/2023	Nigma Galaxy 17:30 B4 fe	Match
10/02/2023	NAVI Javelins 19:00 FURIA fe	Match
10/02/2023	CLG Red 20:30 9 Pandas Fearless	Match
11/02/2023	Saints 10:30 HSG fe	Match
11/02/2023	FURIA fe 12:40 9 Pandas Fearless	Match
11/02/2023	B4 fe 15:30 HSG fe	Match
12/02/2023	NAVI Javelins 10:30 B4 fe	Match
12/02/2023	Nigma Galaxy 13:10 FURIA fe	Match
12/02/2023	NAVI Javelins 17:50 Nigma Galaxy	Match