Welcome to EGamersWorld.
The massive Counter-Strike 2 is back on our screens with the IEM Katowice 2024 matches. The legendary tournament will once again take place at Spodek Arena, where a total of 24 teams will compete for $1,000,000 in prize money, as well as tickets to BLAST Premier: World Finals 2024 and IEM Cologne 2024.
Eternal Fire and BB will also compete for a place in the sun. Both teams will first play in the Play-In stage, where they will try to earn a slot in the group stage. It's not an easy task, it should be noted.
We're trying to figure out who will be stronger in this match and who will advance to the next round of the Play-In stage, and who will have to settle for a drop to the lower stage.
Let's go.
Eternal Fire uniforms
Let's start the match with an analysis of Eternal Fire's form. In this match, the Turks will play as the number one, with odds to win at around 1.7.
The 15th-ranked team in the world ranking has been struggling throughout the season. Despite a huge number of matches, success has been achieved occasionally.
At the beginning of the year Eternal Fire won ESL Pro League Season 17: European Conference, thus securing their place at EPL S17. The Main Event ended miserably - only top 20 and no group.
Participated in BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023: European RMR B. There they took TOP-14, which was not enough to reach the only Major of the season.
In the middle of the year, Eternal Fire showed their best form. The Turks finished in the top 4 twice, but did so at TIR-B tournaments. They broke into the top four at CCT North Europe Series #7 and Thunderpick World Championship 2023: European Series #1.
- Eternal Fire roster: XANTARES, Calyx, MAJ3R, Wicadia, woxic.
Before the ESL Pro League Season 8 Long Round, MAJ3R's team played on CCT Central Europe and Pinnacle Cup V. Both championships ended for them on top 8.
Eternal Fire played their debut match at ESL Pro League Season 18 against Cloud9. They played as the number two and got a natural result: 0-2, but with 11 and 12 rounds respectively.
In the first match of the lower grid Eternal Fire played against 9INE. The Turks were clearly on form, as they managed to run over a pretty tough competitor without much difficulty. The match ended with a score of 2-0 in favour of Eternal Fire. As a result, the ESL Pro League Season 18 run ended very well: the team barely qualified for the play-offs of the tournament, where they managed to win two series. EF left Astralis and BIG behind, but Ledge and Natus Vincere.
EF later made the Top 16 at Roobet Cup 2023, where they finished Top 16 and Top 2 at PARI, Please. In 2024, Eternal Fire attended PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European Qualifier B, where they finished in the Top 2, advancing to European RMR A.
Eternal Fire Mappool
The best map is Nuke. There are 4 matches and 4 wins.
Anubis (7 matches, 85% wins), Mirage (4 matches, 75% wins) are doing very well. Vertigo - 71% wins in 7 matches, Inferno and Overpass - 3 wins in 5 matches.
BB Team uniforms
We continue our introduction to the match with a breakdown of the BB Team uniforms. In this match the team will play as an outsider, with odds to win at around 1.9.
BB Team are ranked 16th in the HLTV world ranking. They managed to achieve this result thanks to their performance at all sorts of local events of dubious quality.
In general, in 2023 they managed to play in 12 tournaments, including 3 qualifying tournaments. We started the last year with an appearance at IEM Sydney 2023. Later played at CCT East Europe Series #2, where they finished in the top 16.
In October 2023 they played at the only S-tier tournament of the year. It was Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2023, where BB showed a very sane result: they managed to reach TOP-6, where Ledge and Complexity, the future TOP-2 of the tournament.
After a very confident Australian event BB returned to play at more down-to-earth tournaments. That was CCT East Europe Series #3 with absolutely failed result in TOP-16, but then CCT Central Europe Series #8 - with TOP-1, improved the situation a bit.
- BB Team: nafany, KaiR0N, s1ren, zorte, danistzz.
They managed to climb to the TOP-16 of the world ranking from HLTV thanks to a series of successful performances at the end of the year. Then BB took TOP-2 at A1 Gaming League Season 7, TOP-4 at BB Dacha and YaLLa Compass Fall 2023.
The last tournament before IEM Katowice 2024 was PGL Major Copenhagen 2024: European Qualifier A. There BB managed to reach TOP-5, which was enough to qualify for European RMR A.
BB Team Mapple
The best map BB is Vertigo. There the team has 100% wins with 2 games. Among very successful maps Overpass with 8 matches and the only loseom.
Anubis is also in plus winrate, where BB won 5 matches out of 9 played. Nuke can be considered as an acceptable map, as BB have 4-4 statistics there.
The most failed maps are Mirage with the statistics 4-5 and Ancient with the total score 3-5.
BB Team - Eternal Fire
The teams have not played each other in official matches yet. This will be their first face-to-face meeting.
Predicted result of Eternal Fire vs BB Team at IEM Katowice 2024
In this match I will be on the side of Eternal Fire. As for me, they are deservedly in their place in the world ranking, have experience of playing against top clubs, and are more played as a team, while BB made their way to the top 20 essentially by using the system, playing at all sorts of dubious tournaments organised by their own sponsor.
Bottom line: Eternal Fire wins.
