Team Vitality win IEM Cologne 2024: Recap, schedule, teams & more

IEM Cologne 2024 is one of the last big Counter-Strike 2 tournaments before the Perfect World Shanghai Major, and Team Vitality have finally secured their first major trophy of 2024 at the event.

The $1 million prize pool event ran through August and was marketed as the “Cathedral of Counter-Strike” by ESL as the organizer promoted the decades-old tournament via iconic moments from past events.

That makes it all the more suiting that ZywOo took the MVP award at the event as Team Vitality brought home the IEM Cologne trophy.

Dexerto spoke with Zywoo, as well as Team Vitality’s founders, about their plans with ZywOo, and they expressed their desire to hold onto the player for the next decade. Considering his performance at IEM Cologne, that seems to be the right decision.

Here’s a full recap of the event’s schedule, standings, and how to catch up on prior matches.

How to watch

You can watch the action from the ESL Counter-Strike Twitch and YouTube channels to catch up on the VoDs. CS2 streamers like ohnePixel were also be co-streaming the event, and you can watch the VoDs through their channels as well.

Format & Bracket

IEM Cologne had a slightly different format than the tournaments before it. The event didn’t feature best-of-one matches, as even games in the Play-in stage were best-of-three series.

Stage 1 of the tournament, the Play-in stage, featured 16 teams in a double-elimination bracket vying for eight spots in Stage 2.

Stage 2 featured a double elimination group stage, with two groups of eight teams with invited squads taking on teams from Stage 1. The event culminated in a Playoff Stage where the top three teams from each group face off in a single elimination bracket to crown the champion.

IEM Cologne 2024 Match Schedule

You can find the full tournament schedule and results below.

Playoffs (August 16-17)

Day 8: August 16

Day 9: August 17

Day 8: August 18

Stage 1 (August 7-9)

Day 1: August 7

Day 2: August 8

Day 3: August 9

Stage 2 (August 10-13)

Day 4: August 10

Day 5: August 11

Day 6: August 12

Day 7: August 13

IEM Cologne 2024 Teams and Players

The teams and players who qualified for Stage 2 of the tournament were invited thanks to winning previous IEM events from this season and placing high on the ESL World Rankings.

Teams in Stage 1 were invited based on their ESL World Ranking and regional ESL rankings. ALTERNATE aTTaX is the only team that qualified for the tournament through an open qualifier.