Fresh off their quarter-final appearance at the BLAST Paris Major, Into the Breach have earned themselves an invitation to Intel Extreme Masters Cologne next month. They will compete in the play-in stage alongside the likes of Astralis, MOUZ and fellow Major deep-runners Monte and Apeks.
Into the Breach earned the last ESL Global World Ranking invitation by just two points. The British squad led by Thomas “Thomas” Utting are ranked 20th in the ESL World Ranking with 362 points, of which 262.5 come from the season’s showcase event (plus 58.5 for their success at the RMR). BIG Clan’s failure to qualify for the Major, despite racking up points across various ESL and BLAST partner events, ended up proving very costly – although curiously the organisation’s academy team did qualify, by virtue of their victory in ESL Meisterschaft.
Into the Breach have thus become the first UK-majority team ever to reach the event in Cologne, although Owen “smooya” Butterfield previously made the grand final with BIG in 2018, and Alex “ALEX” McMeekin did the same with Vitality a year later.
Into the Breach are currently sat 21st in the HLTV world ranking, having played a series of online events since their Major run – highlights include a 2-1 victory over Ninjas in Pyjamas in CCT Online Finals 1. While they lack any standout tournament placings since the Major, they did manage to take home the ESL Premiership Spring 2023 title, beating Endpoint 3-1 in the grand final and ending the latter organisation’s dominance of the UK event. They will look forward to a return to LAN, where they have seemed stronger than the online environment in which much of tier 2 CS takes place.
The yearly event in Cologne has undergone some changes over the years. In 2014, 2015 and 2016 the event – then named ESL One Cologne – was a Major Championship sponsored by Valve. In 2020 the event abandoned qualifiers in favour of dispatching invites to the top teams in the ESL World Ranking, while also retaining a spot for the winners of domestic competition ESL Meisterschaft. After a reassembled online event in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was rebranded in 2021 as IEM Cologne when it was also the first S-tier CS:GO LAN since COVID. Barring 2020’s online event and 2021’s studio LAN, the play-offs have been held at the LANXess Arena since 2015 and 2023’s event will see the top 6 teams compete over the business end of the million-dollar prizepool again.
Currently the only other UK representatives at the event are William “mezii” Merriman and Jamie “keita” Hall’s Fnatic, who are heavily rumoured to be making roster changes ahead of the event, plus GamerLegion coach Ashley “ashhh” Battye. IEM Cologne 2023 starts on July 25th and will be the first S-tier event since the mid-season tournament break.
