The sixteen teams have been assigned their initial match-ups in the tournament's double-elimination bracket.

The IEM Katowice 2021 Play-In is set to kick off on February 16th, with the first eight matches of the the double-elimination bracket taking place in three different time slots. The first set of games will all be best-of-ones, with three matches to be played at noon, three at 13:30 and the two remaining openers at 15:00 .

All matches after that will be best-of-threes until eight remaining teams are left standing on February 17th. The aforementioned eight squads will then proceed to the main stage of the tournament starting the following day.

BIG and Movistar Riders will play against each other as part of the opening triad at 12:00 , with Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield taking on his former teammates at the same time as Spirit face off against Cloud9 and Gambit play TeamOne.

The second wave of matches features Renegades going up against MOUZ in a spicy bout amid reports of the international squad potentially targeting Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong to replace Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen. At the same time a red-hot Virtus.pro will fight Wisla Krakow and Ninjas in Pyjamas will be taking on Complexity.

Last but not least in the opening round will be some fan favorite match-ups in OG vs. fnatic and Liquid vs. MIBR.

The first round of the IEM Katowice Play-in bracket is as follows:

Tuesday, February 16th

12:00 - BIG vs. Movistar Riders
12:00 - Spirit vs. Cloud9
12:00 - Gambit vs. TeamOne

13:30 - Renegades vs. MOUZ
13:30 - Virtus.pro vs. Wisla Krakow
13:30 - Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Complexity

15:00 - OG vs. fnatic
15:00 - Liquid vs. MIBR