The good, bad, and ugly of IEM Katowice 2020 Closed Qualifiers

The IEM Katowice 2020 Closed Qualifiers concluded yesterday and advanced six teams to the event on February 25 - March 1; Cloud9, FaZe, G2, MAD Lions, Renegades, and ViCi.

The good

Cloud9 is on a tear. They have yet to lose a series in the two qualifiers they have played in and effectively proved their doubters wrong. They might just be the best team in North America, which many didn't expect.

ViCi took down long-time Asian rival in TYLOO with Hansel "BnTeT" Ferdinand on the roster, arguably their best player who has now left, to advance to the tournament. Now that BnTeT is in North America, ViCi will take over as the best team from Asia.

MAD Lions has shocked everyone with their recent performances and qualifying for both DreamHack Leipzig 2020 and IEM Katowice 2020. I don't think many people expected them to qualify over ENCE, but here we are.

Renegades seem to be the best team in Oceania once more and advanced as expected.

The bad

FaZe and G2 looks a little shaky. They qualified for IEM Katowice 2020, but they didn't make it easy on themselves. FaZe's first series against ARCY was much closer than it should've been, and so was their second versus ENCE. The same thought applies to G2 versus MAD Lions, but that one is a little more reasonable.

Gen.G isn't doing well, but they also don't quite have BnTeT yet. He is in North America now but wasn't for this qualifier or the DreamHack Leipzig one. Still, with talent on their team, they should be getting further in the qualifiers.

ENCE's difficulties continue. They made a roster change in 2019 that CS:GO fans thought was a terrible idea and the team hasn't proven those opinions wrong yet.

The ugly

I know, I know. This will be the second time I have placed Complexity in the ugly spot. I'm not a hater, I promise. I just expect a lot more from this star-studded roster than what they have given. They are unable to beat Cloud9, who is a much lesser roster in terms of proven talent, and lost to an even shakier MIBR. This was supposed to be the NA super team, and we haven't seen that yet.

Poor ARCY. They were a team that had a lot of talent with names like Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas and Filip "NEO" Kubski. But, after one poor showing in the qualifiers, disbanded entirely. These are the same guys from iconic rosters like FaZe and Virtus.pro. It's a shame to see them thrown back into the free agency pool after such a short time together.