IEM Katowice New Challengers Stage seeding, first matchups determined

Using the "Player-Selected Seeding" method, the sixteen teams participating in the first stage of the Major have been ranked and the initial Swiss stage matchups have been determined.

In January, ESL announced changes to the Major format, with one of the biggest ones being that the seedings would now be determined by the teams themselves. The method was first introduced at IEM Chicago, with some updates being made for it ahead of the Major.

fnatic are heading into the New Challenger Stage with the highest seed

In short, each of the teams participating in the New Challengers Stage were asked to rank the other 15 teams, and those scores were combined by ESL to create a 1-16 ranking and determine the seed of each team.

The result of the "Player-Selected Seeding" is available below:

1. fnatic
2. NRG
3. Cloud9
4. Ninjas in Pyjamas
5. ENCE
6. Vitality
7. G2
8. AVANGAR
9. Renegades
10. Vega Squadron
11. TYLOO
12. Spirit
13. FURIA
14. Grayhound
15. Winstrike
16. ViCi

The New Challengers Stage of the IEM Katowice Major will feature the Swiss format, but with an ELO rating system used to replace the Buchholz system which was used at the FACEIT London Major. The starting ELO ratings will be assigned in accordance to the initial seeding, but will be adjusted after every encounter. Teams' ELO will be used to determine Swiss stage matchups after the first round of games is played out.

With the initial seedings in place, the first round of the Swiss stage will see the following matchups:

fnatic vs. ViCi
NRG vs. Winstrike
Cloud9 vs. Grayhound
Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. FURIA
ENCE vs. Spirit
Vitality vs. TYLOO
G2 vs. Vega Squadron
AVANGAR vs. Renegades

The IEM Katowice Major will also feature more BO3s in the Swiss stage than previous Majors, since every elimination and progression match will be played as a BO3. To accommodate the heavier schedule, the opening two days of the New Challengers and New Legends stages will feature two streams running simultaneously.

Winstrike #27 Georgi 'WorldEdit' YaskinJan 'wayLander' RahkonenAurimas 'Kvik' KvakšysKirill 'Boombl4' MikhailovDavid 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan Spirit #20 Vadim 'DavCost' VasilyevDmitriy 'Dimaoneshot' BandurkaDmitry 'S0tF1k' ForostyankoPavel 'COLDYY1' VeklenkoViktor 'sdy' Orudzhev Cloud9 #7 Robin 'flusha' RönnquistFabien 'kioShiMa' FieyWilliam 'RUSH' WierzbaTimothy 'autimatic' TaJordan 'Zellsis' Montemurro Vega Squadron #50 Anton 'tonyblack' KolesnikovLeonid 'chopper' VishnyakovDmitriy 'jR' ChervakPavel 'hutji' LashkovIgor 'crush' Shevchenko Renegades #13 Justin 'jks' SavageAaron 'AZR' WardJoakim 'jkaem' MyrbostadSean 'Gratisfaction' KaiwaiJay 'Liazz' Tregillgas AVANGAR #22 Bektiyar 'fitch' BahytovTimur 'buster' TulepovAidyn 'KrizzeN' TurlybekovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' Ali FURIA #21 Andrei 'arT' PiovezanYuri 'yuurih' SantosVinicius 'VINI' FigueiredoKaike 'KSCERATO' CeratoRinaldo 'ableJ' Moda Junior ViCi #39 Zhuo 'advent' LiangWeiJie 'zhokiNg' ZhongZhiHong 'aumaN' LiuAndrew 'kaze' KhongWingHei 'Freeman' Cheung Ninjas in Pyjamas #10 Patrik 'f0rest' LindbergChristopher 'GeT_RiGhT' AlesundDennis 'dennis' EdmanJonas 'Lekr0' OlofssonFredrik 'REZ' Sterner Grayhound #32 Christopher 'dexter' NongErdenetsogt 'erkaSt' GantulgaLiam 'malta' SchembriEuan 'sterling' MooreOllie 'DickStacy' Tierney fnatic #5 Richard 'Xizt' LandströmJesper 'JW' WecksellSimon 'twist' EliassonFreddy 'KRIMZ' JohanssonLudvig 'Brollan' Brolin Vitality #14 Nathan 'NBK-' SchmittCédric 'RpK' GuipouyDan 'apEX' MadesclaireAlex 'ALEX' McMeekinMathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut ENCE #12 Aleksi 'allu' JalliJani 'Aerial' JussilaSami 'xseveN' LaasanenAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenJere 'sergej' Salo NRG #6 Damian 'daps' SteeleJacob 'FugLy' MedinaVincent 'Brehze' CayonteEthan 'Ethan' ArnoldTsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov TYLOO #29 YuLun 'Summer' CaiHansel 'BnTeT' FerdinandYuanZhang 'Attacker' ShengHaoWen 'somebody' XuKevin 'xccurate' Susanto G2 #17 Audric 'JACKZ' JugRichard 'shox' PapillonKenny 'kennyS' SchrubAlexandre 'bodyy' PianaroLucas 'Lucky' Chastang