CS2 IEM Melbourne 2025: All teams, schedule, where to watch, and more

The CS2 IEM Melbourne 2025 is about to commence at the Rod Laver Arena, where 16 teams from different regions will fight for the Intel Extreme Masters Trophy. While Team Vitality will enter this tournament as defending champions, other top-tier teams will try to dethrone them with their new strategies. The event has a prize pool of $300,000 and is scheduled to start on April 21, 2025.

Read on for all the essential details of IEM Melbourne 2025, including its schedule, prize pool distribution, and participating teams.

CS2 teams participating in IEM Melbourne 2025

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Here's a list of all the CS2 teams participating in the tournament based on their Valve Regional Standings (VRS):

VRS Europe

Team Spirit (chopper, magixx, zont1x, donk, sh1ro)
Team Vitality (apEX, ZywOo, flameZ, mezii, ropz)

VRS Americas

Team Liquid (NAF, Twistzz, ultimate, NertZ. siuhy)
paiN Gaming (biguzera, nqz, snow, dav1deus, TBD)

VRS Asia

The MongolZ (bLitz, Techno4K, 910, mzinho, Senzu)
FlyQuest (INS, Liazz, Vexite, regali, nettik)

VRS Global

FaZe Clan (rain, broky, karrigan, frozen, EliGE)
Natus Vincere (b1t, Aleksib, jL, iM, w0nderful)
MOUZ (torzsi, xertioN, Jimpphat, Brollam, Spinx)
Team Falcons (Magisk, NiKo, TeSeS, kyxsan, degster)
Virtus.pro (FL1T, fame, electroNic, FL4MUS, ICY)
GamerLegion (sl3nd, ztr, Tauson, PR, REZ)
3DMAX (Lucky, Ex3rcice, Maka, Graviti, boddy)
MIBR (exit, brnz4n, insani, saffee, Lucaozy)
BIG (tabseN, Krimbo, JDC, kyuubii, hyped)
SAW (MUTiRiS, story, Ag1l, AZUWU, cej0t)

IEM Melbourne 2025: Schedule, format, and prize pool

Teams participating in the Melbourne 2025 tourney (Image via ESL)

Here's the full schedule of IEM Melbourne 2025:

Group Stage (April 21 to 24, 2025)

Group A

Upper Bracket Quarterfinals

TBD vs TBD*

Lower Bracket Quarterfinals

TBD vs TBD*

Upper Bracket Semifinals

TBD vs TBD*

Lower Bracket Semifinals

TBD vs TBD*

Upper Bracket Final

TBD vs TBD*

Lower Bracket Final

TBD vs TBD*

Group B

Upper Bracket Quarterfinals

TBD vs TBD*

Lower Bracket Quarterfinals

TBD vs TBD*

Upper Bracket Semifinals

TBD vs TBD*

Lower Bracket Semifinals

TBD vs TBD*

Upper Bracket Final

TBD vs TBD*

Lower Bracket Final

TBD vs TBD*

Playoffs (April 25 to 27, 2025)

Quarterfinals

Group B 2nd Place vs Group A 3rd Place*:
Group A 2nd Place vs Group B 3rd Place*:

Semfinals

Group A 1st Place vs TBD*:
Group B 1st Place vs TBD*:

Grand Final

TBD vs TBD*

Note: We'll update the (*) part once the organizers reveal the official schedule.

Like most Intel Extreme Masters tournaments, Melbourne 2025 will follow the standard Two-doulbe-elimination (GSL) format where 16 teams will be divided into two groups of eight. Each match will follow the Bo3 (best-of-three) format.

Talking about the qualification criteria, both teams holding top positions from the two groups will directly advance to the Semifinals stage. Meanwhile, the runners-up from each group will secure their ticket to the Quarterfinals with high seeds, and the third-place holders will qualify for the same with low seeds.

Coming to the Playoffs stage, the tournament will follow the standard single-elimination bracket, where all the matches except the Grand Final will follow a best-of-three (BO3) format, and the concluding match will be of best-of-five (BO5) to decide the winner.

IEM Melbourne 2025 features a $300,000 prize pool. It'll be distributed among all the 16 participating teams. Here's a detailed breakdown of the reward:

Place	$USD	Participant
1st	$125,000	TBD
2nd	$50,000	TBD
3rd-4th	$25,000	TBD, TBD
5th-6th	$12,500	TBD, TBD
7th-8th	$7,000	TBD, TBD
9th-12th	$5,000	TBD, TBD, TBD
13th-16th	$4,000	TBD, TBD, TBD

IEM Melbourne 2025 live stream: Where to watch

Navigate to ESL Counter Strike's official YouTube and Twitch channels to enjoy the English stream of the Melbourne 2025 tournament.

To watch the IEM Melbourne 2025 stream on YouTube: Click here
To watch the IEM Melbourne 2025 stream on Twitch: Click here

That's everything we now so far on the upcoming Intel Extreme Masters tournament after IEM Katowice 2025.

For more content related to Valve's FPS title, check out Sportskeeda's Counter-Strike 2 page.

About the author

SoumyaKanti Saha is an Esports and Gaming writer at Sportskeeda, primarily covering first-person shooter titles. Though he comes from a BCA background, his decision to get into journalism stems from his love for video games. He started his gaming journalism journey at Sportskeeda after serving as a Scholar Trainee at WIPRO for two years and continues producing exceptional articles on games like Overwatch, Call Of Duty, Apex Legends, and Counter-Strike 2. Simply put, he’s capable of covering every FPS title he’s assigned.

He believes in thorough research when covering a story. For this, he turns to not just his trusted sources but scours the annals of various social media channels to deliver any additional useful information to his readers.

SoumyaKanti finds PewDiePie's story quite fascinating, as he believes his dedication and hard work to popularize a genre that very few people knew of back then to be truly Herculean.

Multiplayer games fuel his constant need for action while playing. That said, in a Jumanji-esque scenario, he’d love nothing more than diving into the Red Dead Redemption universe for its the intense storyline and detailed world and characters.

In his free time, SoumyaKanti loves listening to metal, playing video games (Duh!), and watching movies.

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