CS2: IEM Cologne 2025 Playoffs: Qualified teams, schedule, and more

The Counter-Strike 2 IEM Cologne 2025 group stage has officially wrapped up, and it’s been a really entertaining week for esports enthusiasts. A lot of roster changes happened right before this event, and they were quite surprising. From Kyousuke's debut with Team Falcons to broky's return to FaZe Clan's lineup, a lot of these adjustments made an instant impact. Now, the stage is set for the final phase of the tournament.

On that note, here’s everything you need to know about the IEM Cologne 2025 Playoffs.

Everything you need to know about the CS2 IEM Cologne 2025 Playoffs

For those who don't know, Intel Extreme Masters Cologne is one of the biggest Counter-Strike 2 tournaments every year. Organized by ESL in collaboration with Intel, 24 of the best teams from around the world qualify for the event based on their Valve Global Standings. The event kicked off with the Play-In stage on July 23, 2025, followed by the Group Stage on July 26, 2025. Now, the Playoffs will run from August 1, 2025, to August 3, 2025.

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Teams

Here are the six teams that made it to the playoffs:

Team Vitality: apEX, ZywOo, flameZ, mezii, ropz
MOUZ: torzsi, xertioN, Jimpphat, Brollan, Spinx
Team Spirit: chopper, donk, sh1ro, zont1x, zweih
The MongolZ: bLitz, 910, Techno4k, mzinho, Senzu
Natus Vincere: b1t, AleksiB, iM, w0nderful, makazze
FURIA: yuurih, KSCERATO, FalleN, molodoy, YEKINDAR

Schedule

Here's the complete IEM Cologne 2025 Playoffs schedule:

Quarterfinal 1: August 1, 2025, at 9:45 AM ET
Quarterfinal 2: August 1, 2025, at 1:00 PM ET
Semifinal 1: August 2, 2025, at 9:45 AM ET
Semifinal 2: August 2, 2025, at 1:00 PM ET
Grand Final: August 3, 2025, at 11:00 AM ET

Prize pool

The total prize pool of this tournament is $1,000,000. Here's how the prize pool is divided among the top six teams:

1st place: $400,000
2nd place: $180,000
3rd–4th place: $80,000 each
5th–6th place: $40,000 each

Where to watch

CS2 IEM Cologne 2025 Playoffs will be broadcast in numerous languages. Here are all the official channels:

English: Twitch (@ESLCS), YouTube (@ESLCS)
Russian: YouTube (@ParagonEventsCS2LiveRU)
German: Twitch (@DACHCS)
French: Twitch (@croissantstriketv), YouTube (@CroissantStrike)
Kazakh: Twitch (@cs2_paragon_kz), YouTube (@ParagonEventsCS2LiveKZ)
Spanish: Twitch (@x9nium), YouTube (@x9nium)
Arabic: Twitch (@forg1), YouTube (@forg1one)
Vietnamese: YouTube (@RapchieuGame)
Chinese: Bilibili, Douyu

Venue

As always, the Playoffs will take place in the iconic LANXESS Arena in Cologne, Germany. It has a seating capacity of over 18,000 and is popularly known as the "Cathedral of Counter-Strike" for years. If you are planning to attend IEM Cologne 2025 offline, you can learn more about the venue and ticketing on the official IEM website here.

That’s everything you need to know about IEM Cologne 2025 Playoffs.

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About the author

Harshit Singh is a gaming journalist at Sportskeeda, with Fortnite, Counter-Strike 2, and Marvel Rivals being his areas of specialization. A final-year B.Des (Visual Communication) student at Delhi Technological University, he is always eager to pursue creative endeavors. Harshit aims to deliver news and up-to-date content promptly to players around the globe. To that end, he acquires information from reliable forums and social media pages and religiously tracks the latest coverage of Fortnite — a game he has been playing since 2018. He is often found testing the new meta in-game or spectating competitive tournaments.

Harshit holds a deep love for video games, which stemmed from the hours he spent playing GTA Vice City, NFS Most Wanted 2005, FlatOut 2, and Total Overdose in his school days. Currently, he is veering towards story-driven, single-player games, with Red Dead Redemption 2 being one of his favorites.

Harshit is an ardent fan of esports titles like CS, Rocket League, and Valorant, with Fnatic, EDG, G2, and Astralis being a few of his favorite orgs. Counter-Strike pro Xantares and Benjifishy, an esports athlete who has mastered both Fortnite and Valorant, are inspirational figures for him.

Harshit works as a music producer under the alias Hysaze. He is extremely passionate about EDM and has garnered over 40 million streams across all platforms. He is also a regular contributor to Fandom’s EDM Wiki.

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Edited by Adarsh J Kumar