IEM Sydney groups and BO1 opening matchups released

3-10-2023 20:02

The first CS2 LAN tournament will open with best-of-one matches.

IEM Sydney will be the first significant CS2 LAN

ESL has revealed the groups and opening matchups for IEM Sydney, whilst also confirming that the first round of play will utilize the best-of-one format.

Responses to the fact that the opening round will be best-of-one MR12 matches have been largely negative, with Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool among those making his feelings known via Twitter.

The rest of the group stage at the $250,000 tournament will be best-of-three, with the group winners heading to the semi-finals, whilst second and third place in their group earn a quarter-final berth. The playoffs will utilize a single-elimination, best-of-three bracket.

One of the more interesting opening matchups will pit Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov's new BetBoom squad against the top-ranked team in the world, Vitality, who have just been rocked by the news that coach Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen will be departing the team in November.

zonic, Lars Robl set to transfer to Falcons *

Over in Group B fnatic will be taking on Cloud9, with the Russian superteam yet to find their footing after making blockbuster moves in the off-season.

The opening matches and schedule:

Group A

02:00 Natus Vincere vs. Apeks
02:00 MOUZ vs. VERTEX

03:15 Vitality vs. BetBoom
03:15 FaZe vs. GamerLegion

Group B

04:30 ENCE vs. Lynn Vision
04:30 fnatic vs. Cloud9

05:45 Monte vs. Complexity
05:45 G2 vs. Grayhound

BO1 OMEGALUL

2023-10-03 20:03

9 replies

3AM OMEGALUL

2023-10-03 20:07

6 replies

2023-10-03 20:09

1 reply

1AM UNTIL 4.:45 AM..... amazing matchs

2023-10-03 23:41

2023-10-03 20:12

MR12 OMEGALUL

2023-10-03 21:52

first time ? for asia every tournament in EU is start at midnight

2023-10-04 05:39

no one cares though? CS is European sport

2023-10-04 17:09

bo1+mr12 = lose pistols gg

2023-10-03 21:56

Force buys often work out, besides, you got to just get better in pistols then I guess :D

2023-10-04 07:48

ez for vertex

These times are insanely stupid lmao. Great first CS2 tournament

26 replies

i didnt even notice that lmao, rip viewer count

3 replies

like at least make it start at 23:00 GMT or smth that people can watch the first two matches. But no. It starts at fcking 2 in the night. Surely a great way to get people excited about CS2 :)

2023-10-03 20:17

2 replies

then again, hasn't IEM Sydney always been lower in viewcounts anyways during the 3 years it existed (2017, 2018, and 2019) due to timezones?

2023-10-03 20:10

Honestly no idea; but I did at least manage to watch the play-offs and parts of the group stage before. Time slots where always non optimal but this is legit unwatchable for most of EU, as it is also under the week :D

oh shit, I just noticed. These matches are literally being done in the middle of the night :DDD

2023-10-03 20:08

yep. Makes zero sense why they have that, as previous tournaments also had better timeslots then whatever this is

Are you slow or you don't know about time zones?

IEM Sydneys before this had watchable time slots; I think they either started at 22:00 EST or 23:00 GMT. Not at whatever this is. EDIT: just checked: matches started at 4:00 GMT and went till 10.00 in the morning. Way better

2023-10-03 20:16

4 replies

I could be wrong but playoffs and group stages start at different times. Playoffs are usually later games in the day.

2023-10-03 20:21

Eh Group Stages before started later too; they just really fucked up the scedule this time. I really hope play-offs will be different and more convienent times for more people

Yeah I've just checked and there is literally 2 hours of difference for some reason

2023-10-04 01:06

They are going to go till around 10am this time too. And it's also possible that the games will only start this early on the 1st day, and will move to around a 4am (cet) start for the other days

2023-10-03 21:18

a lot of tournaments in asia and NA manage to have good watch times for most of the world though

2023-10-03 20:20

Have a sook

Its just bad for the game lmao. First CS2 tournament and a big part of the playerbase cant even watch it.

2023-10-03 20:22

+1 11am goat time

2023-10-04 01:19

+1 tell these losers to suck it up or shut it up

2023-10-04 04:53

What do you mean? They look fine

2023-10-03 23:34

:) I dont doubt that for you

2023-10-03 23:38

Timezones Exist? I'm sorry it doesn't work for everyone. I don't complain having to watch every major csgo tournament the next day on a vod as they all go throughout the night in NZ?

2023-10-04 01:33

Lol try being here and keeping up with Europe / NA time zones to watch matches. One tournament you can just not watch or stay up, not the end of the world

2023-10-04 03:51

We (downunder) literally deal with midnight to 5am games every tourney. You do it once a year, cry me a river haha.

2023-10-04 12:23

true these soyboy pussies are just being soft

2023-10-04 17:48

At least they'll know who wins in advance so they can put a bet on the winner..

2023-10-04 21:10

I also wouldnt care, if they a), didnt already had better times before this, and B) it wouldn't be the first CS2 bigger tournament. IEM sydney 2019 had games you could actually watch in EU for the most part

2023-10-05 16:13

Work for me

2023-10-05 16:11

bo1 mr12 xDDDDD what a shit

2023-10-03 20:04

bo1 mr12 tho :\ y u do dis

whats the point of shortening round # if youre gonna keep running bo1s....

BO1s opening matches LULZ. Fucking clownasses. Also, how tf does G2 get another EASY fucking pathway to the playoffs again. They literally have to face Grayhound who is an ez picking and then face Monte or coL. Now admittedly, the two latter have proven they're not exactly slackers anymore but still. And unlucky for Lynn Vision, first they get G2 as their first match in EPL and now ENCE in Sydney lmao.

2023-10-03 20:06

good seeding

2023-10-03 20:05

Vitality and ENCE worse seeding than G2 ?

2023-10-03 21:54

bruh i can understand they had the schedule for this tournament prepared already but they should seriously quit Bo1 in T1 tournaments all together.

2023-10-03 20:13

Agreed, especially when they switch to MR12, would be especially stupid. edit: holy shit this is on MR12... Soooo dumb.

BO1 MR12? Crazy shit.

wake up babe G2 is playing Grayhound in Sydney

2023-10-03 20:14

Cmon Complexity, get some revenge.

3am..

3am gl with 5k viewers

2023-10-03 20:18

are you able to do pickems for the group stages? or only single elimination

2023-10-03 20:19

3am games bo1 mr12 Nice start to cs2 💀💀💀💀💀

10am with cs2, im so excited

Cs2 Bo1 Mr12 This gonna be sick

2023-10-03 20:23

Hahhahaha what? 3am?bo1s??? Hahhahaha have fucking fun you absolute CLWNS

2023-10-03 20:26

different time zone, Australia.. :L

2023-10-03 20:52

Yeah i know, im shocked more about bo1s with mr12 its so fucked

2023-10-03 20:53

rip event tho

this is so exciting ; as old times, everything in groupstage BO1 gonna be interesting event.

2023-10-03 20:30

Boring groups

2023-10-03 20:34

who needs sleep anyway

2023-10-03 20:37

Bo1s should still be mr15

2023-10-03 20:38

BO1 MR12 lmao

2023-10-03 20:45

Everyone above me getting a taste of what it's like to watch pro cs in this timezone Why are these bo1 matches

2023-10-03 20:49

Legit everyone whinging for ONE tourney when we have to stay up for EVERY. SINGLE. TOURNEY. NO MATTER WHEN OR WHERE IT IS. I'm gonna bring a mug to the arena with Euro tears

2023-10-04 02:11

Navi vs MOUZ again if apeks lose

2023-10-03 20:51

64 tick on lan will be Comedy pure LOL

what a joke of a schedule. No games will go past 21:00 sydney time unless vp somehow come to sydney say fuck you all were playing and start saving every round. what are they kids that have school next day they can't go past their curfew of 9pm, ain't nobody waking up in eu for this shit at 5am - 7am on work days -90% viewers for all games except 8:30 am quaters, 8:30 semi and 8:30 final, those will be -50% viewers, especially sunday 8:30 am nobody wakes up that early on sundays unless you are a boomer 80 year old

2023-10-03 20:57

Maybe you missed how the world works. What are they supposed to do? Change Sydney timezone or play at 2am in sydney? Bo1 is the bigger joke here.

2023-10-03 22:15

Yea, because changing matches 1 / 2 hours later (which would make it more watchable in eu) would definitely result in a generous 21:00 last match of the day finish into 2am finish.

2023-10-03 22:31

If you check the previous iem sydney events, you can see that the matches used to begin later back then so EU could wake up and watch like half of the matches in the morning I guess we should wait for the entire schedule to be realised, but feels like it's way worse than usually for some reason

2023-10-04 01:18

Navi vs Apeks and Mouz again, what is that unlucky seeding?

2023-10-03 21:01

Why are yall blaming cs2 and not esl for the shitty idea of having bo1's? wtf

2023-10-03 21:07

BO1 MR12 64TICK AUSTRALIA

2023-10-03 21:22

australia pog country ngl

2023-10-03 22:16

inb4 Giant Spider enters the venue and cancels the whole event

2023-10-03 22:39

only pussies scared of spoders

2023-10-03 22:52

the country itself yeah but the timezone.. :(

2023-10-04 13:06

now watch epl winners lose to vertex.

2023-10-03 21:26

can happen, bo1 is lit, also vertex might prepare 1 super solid map since they know seeding

100 viewers from EU :D congratz

2023-10-03 21:40

You know, I'm pretty sure if Volvo would have made any attempt to communicate with TOs, ESL would surely have it arranged that the first big LAN tournament of CS2 would NOT be in Australia. But nah, better randomly spit out your game whenever you think it is kinda ready, will work out just fine...

stay mad euro

2023-10-04 01:16

I thought that was the point of MR12. So there would be no BO1

2023-10-03 21:57

are these clowns frr

2023-10-03 21:58

oh man this looks like a disaster in the making

2023-10-03 22:02

BO1 are you kidding me? You have the best possibility to do all matches bo3, but no, lets get more random results

2023-10-03 22:05

MR12 BO1 loool

2023-10-03 22:09

150 viewers maximum

2023-10-03 22:10

If VERTEX and grayhound manage to win their first BO1's, hltv will become unuseable because of aussie delusion

2023-10-03 22:12

MR12 BO1 lmao Clown fiesta

2023-10-03 22:25

Stupidest ever ,if they decrease rounds just play normal bo3 nice one esl

2023-10-03 22:22

I mean it's w/e, elimination and 1st place group stage matches are bo3 Need to lose one bo1 and one bo3 to get eliminated Git gud maybe?

#shitlorantstrike2 ahahahaha who will watch this shit sponsors must allready run from this game

2023-10-03 23:02

Faze game at 2:15pm my time? Noice!!!

2023-10-03 23:14

What the fuck 11 am matches huh

2023-10-04 01:07

begin at 8:00 am in China, better than midnight in European timezone actually lol

2023-10-04 02:32

2 am... eyo wtf are you guys at the top thinking, eu is like 80% of the entire viewership

2023-10-04 03:23

fuck Bo1

2023-10-04 03:56

australia shouldn't be allowed to host tournaments and their teams shouldn't even be allowed in group stages i don't know why the community allows such a dead region to permeate long after their spark of relevance burned out years ago there hasn't been a single real player from the region and now the entire scene has to suffer while they bend over backwards to accomodate one of the most racist and irrelevant regions in the world while asia gets shafted over and over

2023-10-04 04:35

5 replies

lol listen to this cunt....keep your braindead opinions to yourself. Expected from a mauisnake enjoyer tho

2023-10-04 04:58

oh man that's a lot of salt for one Aussie

2023-10-04 08:39

its already confirmed that au teams will have the best cs2 teams when they suddenly start stomping "tier 1" teams, the excuses will be loL they couldnt even do it in cs go, cs2 merchants well... welcome to the future yung man

2023-10-04 05:50

the delusions have already started

2023-10-04 17:13

2023-10-04 17:33

BO1 MR12 gg go next event

2023-10-04 04:36

Cry is free eurocucks

2023-10-04 04:38

If viewership isn't an objective, that's a perfectly valid choice

2023-10-04 10:56

Bro they do pro league twice a year and hltv says they wont watch it but still do. Sydney viewership will be fine

2023-10-04 11:37

I ain't watching anything between 02:00 and 06:00 AM, and I doubt I'll be the only one in EU acting like that

2023-10-04 15:06

Cool man Just letting you know that I have watched games between 2am and 6am for every tournament for the past 3 years. So if people really want to watch it they will. This is the first IEM Sydney in 4 years cry more lmao

2023-10-04 23:20