ESL has announced the list of participants in the group stage of the IEM Summer tournament, which will be held from June 3 to June 13. By now, 15 of the 16 teams that will compete for the playoffs are known. The sixteenth team will be determined by the results of the ESL National Championships Global Playoffs. The tournament participants were divided into two groups depending on their place in the world ranking.
The Gambit team, which currently occupies the first place in the world ranking, will head Group A. It will also include G2, which recently improved its position. Also included in this group are several teams that have gone through significant changes in recent months, such as Astralis and Vitality. Now they will have to prove that they can succeed with new lineups as well.
Among the most notable members of Group B are – Heroic, who previously became ESL Pro Leagues Season 13 champions and now intend to repeat that success. Second in the team distribution were Virtus.pro, despite the difficulties the team has been facing lately. Other participants include – Brazilian Imperial, who recently won the DreamHack Open March in South America.
The IEM Summer tournament will be the first major championship in which Train will be replaced by Ancient in the mapp pool. Teams will compete for group exits in a double-elimination format, and in the playoffs will play for a $250,000 prize pool.