The biggest stories and plays from day one of the IEM Cologne group stage

Take a quick look back at what went down on the first day of the top-16 stage at IEM Cologne.

Day one of the IEM Cologne group stage is behind us, and following its conclusion we know the first six teams who will be fighting for spots in the Lanxess Arena.

We also know which teams are already in dire straights after being cast down to the lower bracket, a list that already includes the likes of Cloud9, Natus Vincere, and Astralis.

Date	Matches
IEM Cologne 2023
29/07/2023	GamerLegion 0:2 Monte	Match
29/07/2023	Cloud9 1:2 fnatic	Match
29/07/2023	ENCE 2:1 9INE	Match
29/07/2023	G2 2:1 Astralis	Match
29/07/2023	Heroic 2:1 TheMongolz	Match
29/07/2023	Natus Vincere 0:2 MOUZ	Match

Heroic dodge the upset

Heroic must be breathing a sigh of relief to not join the list of names above as they only narrowly dodged an upset loss to TheMongolz in their opening series, recovering from a map down to take the win 2-1.

The team around Garidmagnai "⁠bLitz⁠" Byambasuren came out swinging with a win on their map pick of Mirage, and then had Heroic on the ropes for much of Overpass as well. The Mongolian roster led 13-7 at one point and seemed to have victory in their grasp just a handful of rounds later as chaotic CS unfolded between the teams, but a blunder after what looked to be a perfect flank by Sodbayar "⁠Techno⁠" Munkhbold enabled Heroic to deny the win and fight into overtime, where they eventually claimed victory.

TheMongolz kept things close in the first half of the Inferno decider, but stellar clutches from Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller — accompanied by emphatic shouts to his opponents across the player area — allowed the Danish team to seize control down the stretch, with them eventually emerging victorious, 16-10.

m0NESY gets a dream highlight

It might have been against pistols, but Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov scored an ace that almost every Counter-Strike player has dreamed of getting at some point in their lives. In fact, the Russian AWPer admitted that the type of Deagle ace he nabbed against Astralis was something he had thought of getting since he played 1.6 and watched fragmovies of the game.

Things had been looking somewhat dire for G2 prior to that as they had faltered to Astralis on Ancient at the start of the series, and the teams were going blow for blow on Inferno as the map came down to the wire. After m0NESY's ace, however, G2 lost just one round before closing out their pick, and then absolutely dominated on the CT side of the Nuke decider to recover and take the series win.

NAVI, Cloud9 cast down to the lower bracket

Cloud9 were bound to have a hard time of things without star rifler Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov present, but they nearly managed to overcome fnatic in their opening match. Alas, the European combine prevailed after a three-map series that ended in an overtime on Ancient, leaving Cloud9 fighting to recover in the lower bracket.

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Ax1Le to miss IEM Cologne group stage

Natus Vincere also had a poor start to their IEM Cologne campaign, faltering to MOUZ in a two-map series. David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský continued to be a menace after demonstrating strong form during the Play-in, and with their other individuals coming online, MOUZ are starting to look extremely dangerous. NAVI have a lot to worry about after the series, particularly in regard to Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan, who ended the day with a meager 0.67 rating.

Player of the day

While frozen had an admirable performance versus Natus Vincere and was the initial candidate to get our nod for the day thanks to a 1.62-rated Ancient, cadiaN's phenomenal impact against TheMongolz on Inferno and 1.80 rating came up trumps.

That was thanks in part to that very performance ensuring that the Danish outfit would indeed bounce back from what was very nearly a devastating early blow in their Cologne campaign, with his ace and clutch in particular helping Heroic take things over the line.

HLTV live coverage of the day

IEM Cologne day one gallery

Sebastian "⁠volt⁠" Maloș: "GamerLegion have a better plan for the future compared to what we had in ITB"

Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha: "After Dallas, it sort of felt like the season was cut short"

Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač: "All of the players on the team deserve one more chance"

Highlights