The Cologne Connoisseur's Guide To Finding Your Signature Scent

The 2022 IEM Cologne was a thrilling tournament, with FaZe Clan crowned champions after a five-game marathon against Natus Vincere (NAVI). This victory cemented FaZe Clan as the best CS:GO team in the world and made history as they became the first team ever to win Katowice, Cologne, and a Major in a single year. The final match was a close contest, with FaZe ultimately winning 3-2. The MVP of the tournament was Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev.

ESL One Cologne 2014

The 2014 ESL One Cologne was the third Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship. It was held during Gamescom 2014 from 14-17 August at the Cologne Exhibition Centre in Cologne, Germany. The tournament was organised by the Electronic Sports League with sponsorship from Valve. It had a total prize pool of $250,000.

The tournament was livestreamed on the official ESL Twitch channel. Over 400,000 concurrent viewers watched the grand finals, while 2,950,600 total unique viewers watched the event across four days.

Format

There were 16 teams in the main European qualifier. Four teams from each regional qualifier (Open, North, Southeast, and Southwest) were in the tournament. The tournament was a best of three, double-elimination bracket, with six teams qualifying for the Major.

Teams

The top seven teams from EMS One Katowice 2014 qualified as Legends. The eighth finalist from Katowice 2014, LGB eSports, disbanded before Cologne 2014. Six teams from Europe, one team from North America, one team from the Oceanic region, and one team from India played online qualifiers to play in the tournament.

Results

Ninjas in Pyjamas won the event, beating Fnatic 2-1 in the finals. They took home $100,000 of the $250,000 community-funded prize pool.

ESL One Cologne 2015

The grand finals featured EnVyUs and fnatic. EnVyUs removed Overpass and picked Dust2, while fnatic removed Mirage and picked Cobblestone. Inferno was randomly selected as the third map.

Fnatic won the tournament, beating EnVyUs 2-1 (16-6 on Dust2, 12-16 on Cobblestone, and 16-2 on Inferno). Robin "flusha" Rönnquist was named the tournament's MVP.

ESL One Cologne 2016

The top eight teams from MLG Major: Columbus 2016 qualified as Legends. Six teams from Europe, one team from North America, one team from the Oceanic region, and one team from India played online qualifiers in order to play in the tournament.

Teams were split into four seeded groups, and all group matches were best-of-one. In the first round of matches, the highest and lowest seeds faced each other, and the second and third seeds played each other. The winner of those two matches then played to determine the first team to move on to the playoff stage, while the losers played to eliminate one team from the tournament. With one team advanced and one eliminated, the final two teams faced off to decide the remaining playoff spot. This format is known as the GSL format, named for the Global StarCraft II League.

The playoff bracket consisted of eight teams, two from each group. All of these matches were single elimination, best-of-three. Teams advanced in the bracket until a winner was decided.

There were seven maps to choose from. Overpass was released by Valve only a month before the tournament, and the decision to add a new map on such short notice before a Major caused some controversy.

Before each match in the group stage, both teams banned two maps. The map for the match was then randomly selected from the remaining three maps. In the playoffs, each team first banned one map, then chose one map. The two chosen maps were the first two maps in the best-of-three. If the series required a third map, the map was randomly selected from the three remaining maps.

ESL One Cologne 2017

Sixteen teams from around the world competed in the tournament, with SK Gaming ultimately claiming the championship title. SK Gaming defeated Cloud9 in the finals, winning three maps to claim the ESL One Cologne 2017 trophy. This victory solidified SK Gaming as one of the top teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive at the time.

The tournament was the last premier event before the PGL 2017 Krakow Major Championship and was also the first tournament of the Intel Grand Slam. The Intel Grand Slam is a series of tournaments run by ESL and DreamHack, where the first team to win four titles earns an additional $1,000,000 prize.

The tournament featured notable players and commentators, including Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner, Alex "Machine" Richardson, and Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, who was named the tournament's MVP. SK Gaming's victory at ESL One Cologne 2017 marked a significant moment in the history of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive esports.

ESL One Cologne 2018

The tournament was the eleventh tournament of the first season of the Intel Grand Slam. The first team to win four titles out of ten tournaments earns an extra $1,000,000. FaZe Clan was leading the way with three wins prior to ESL One Cologne 2018.

The event used Valve's Active Duty map pool, with revamped Dust II replacing Cobblestone in the Active Duty map pool.

The group stage was seeded based on the ESL CS:GO World Rankings, with two groups of eight teams in a double-elimination bracket. The initial matches were best-of-one, with every other match being best-of-three. The teams to win their brackets moved on to the semifinals, while the next two teams were in the quarterfinals.

The playoffs were a six-team, single-elimination best-of-three bracket, except for the grand finals, which was a best-of-five.

The finals featured Natus Vincere (Na'Vi), which defeated Fnatic and the favourites to win the tournament, Astralis. The other finalists were the dark horse and hometown favourites, BIG, which defeated G2 Esports and upset FaZe Clan. Na'Vi won the tournament over BIG 3-1 for its first Intel Grand Slam win.

The MVP of the tournament was Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev.

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