ESL has officially announced the list of teams participating in Intel Extreme Masters Melbourne 2025 and confirmed the competition format. The event will take place from April 21 to 27 at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia, and is part of the prestigious Intel Grand Slam tournament. The teams will compete to win a total prize worth $ 1,000,000, making the tournament one of the most important events in the first half of the 2025.

The teams participated in the tournament

IEM Melbourne 2025 will gather 16 teams invited, including the world's leading teams and promising teams that have shown a stable progress in 2024. Liquid, Pain Gaming, The Mongolz, Flyquest, FaZe Clan, Natus Vincere, Mouz, Virtus.pro, Gamerlegion, 3DMax, Big, Team Vitality, Eternal Fire, Team Falcons, and Mibr.

The gathering of such strong teams promises a tense competition, when there is the presence of big tournament champions as well as the teams are determined to affirm their position in the top of the world.

Tournament format

The tournament will start on April 21 with the GSL formula (Double-Elimination). All 16 teams will be divided into two tables, each with 8 teams. The group matches will take place in BO3 format (Best of 3 - 3 games, win 2).

At the end of the group stage, the three strongest teams of each table will enter the play-off round:

The top team will reach the semi -finals.

The second team will be ranked high Seed and confront the third team of the remaining table in the quarterfinals.

The three -standing team will reach the quarterfinals as low seeds.

The play-off round takes place from April 25 to 27 according to the single-Elimination format.

The quarterfinals and semi -finals will fight BO3.

The final match will take place according to Bo5 (Best of 5 - 5 games, win 3), increasing the drama for the competition to win the championship.

Total prize

ESL has announced how to allocate a total prize of 1,000,000 USD, specifically as follows:

🏆 Champion - USD 125,000 + $ 160,000

🥈 runner -up - 50,000 USD + 100,000 USD in the team bonus

🥉 Rank 3-4 - 25,000 USD + 80,000 USD

🏅 rank 5-6 - 12,500 USD + 60,000 USD

🏅 rank 7-8 - 7,000 USD + 40,000 USD

🎖 rank 9-10 - 5,000 USD + 20,000 USD

🎖 rank 13-16 - 4,000 USD

Expectations from the tournament

IEM Melbourne 2025 promises to be a new chapter full of excitement in the history of Counter-Strike 2. With the formula of two GSL tables and only 6 teams enter the play-off, each match will have more important meaning than ever before . Based on the list of participating teams, fans can expect stressful confrontations and surprises from the teams who want to prove their strength before the giants of CS2 village.

Not only the championship title and $ 125,000 are waiting for the strongest team, but this is also an opportunity to get closer to the title of Intel Grand Slam. ESL continues to maintain the standard of organizing world -class tournaments, and IEM Melbourne 2025 will definitely be a monumental event for the CS2 community.