The playoffs stage of IEM Cologne 2025 is about to begin. From Friday until Sunday, the last five matches of the tournament will be played.
By the looks of things, either Team Vitality or Team Spirit is bound to become the champion. However, in CS2, there is always room for dark horses.
The Participants
Here are the six teams that survived the group stage of IEM Cologne 2025:
- Team Vitality (won group A)
- Team Spirit (won group B)
- MOUZ
- FURIA
- The MongolZ
- Natus Vincere
Favorites
Whoever wins the quarterfinal between MOUZ and FURIA will have to face the big boss, Vitality, in the semifinals. The odds of either of these teams getting past Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut are lower than the odds the Balrog had against Gandalf.
In the other quarterfinal, The MongolZ are very likely to beat NAVI. This would be good for the spectacle because they’re also well-equipped to beat Spirit or to at least create a three-map series. NAVI, on the other hand, would get completely destroyed by Spirit. Their past record against this opponent is abysmal: 1 W – 4 L in 2025.
Based on everything we know, the Grand Final should be either Vitality vs. Spirit or Vitality vs. The MongolZ. The first scenario would give Danil “donk” Kryshkovets the chance to get revenge for what happened in the Grand Final of IEM Katowice 2025, in which Vitality defeated Spirit 3 – 0.
The only problem is that the 3 – 0 scenario is likely to happen again. Even though donk won the Best Player of the Year award in 2024, his team is nowhere near the level of Vitality.
One could argue that on an individual level, he’s just as good as ZywOo. But apart from Dmitriy “sh1ro” Sokolov, not a single teammate of his can be compared with ZywOo’s teammates.
