G2 to Skip IEM Melbourne 2025 as Teams Announced

With ESL finally announcing the 16 invited teams for IEM Melbourne 2025, I was struck by one notable omission: G2. Competitive Counter-Strike’s dalliance Down Under is headed to Melbourne this year instead of the usual Sydney event, but Snax and his men won’t be involved in proceedings.

Most top CS2 teams are in attendance

IEM Melbourne occupies the space between the 21st and 27th of April, beginning just over a week after PGL Bucharest concludes and ending a couple of days before BLAST Rivals Spring kicks off. Its impressive $1 million prize pool has clearly impressed the top teams, as besides G2, they’re pretty much all in attendance here.

THE 16 TEAMS INVITED TO #IEM MELBOURNE 2025 DOWN UNDER 🦘@Team__Spirit @TeamLiquidCS @paiNGamingBR @1mongolz @FlyQuestCS @FaZeClan @natusvincere @mousesports @virtuspro @GamerLegion @3DMAXGaming @BIGCLANgg @TeamVitalityCS @eternalfirecs2 @TeamFalconsGG @MIBR pic.twitter.com/fWzoXZcqc0

— ESL Counter-Strike (@ESLCS) February 14, 2025

This means that we’re pretty much guaranteed to see a high-quality showing of Counter-Strike at IEM Melbourne 2025. The likes of Spirit, NAVI, and Vitality heading to Australia should see one of the usual suspects crowned champions, but ultimately, it’s better this than a tournament with fewer Tier 1 teams in attendance.

Of course, the headline here is “Why no G2?” The answer: I have no idea. Even if G2 plans to attend either event bookending IEM Melbourne, there’s still enough time to get to their destinations if they go on to reach the Finals of each. Now, admittedly, I wouldn’t exactly be thrilled about traveling from Melbourne to Mexico and having to immediately play Counter-Strike on either side of those flights, but the same could be said of any of G2’s rivals at the top, all of whom will probably be going to IEM Melbourne and BLAST Rivals. It’s not an MRQ thing, either, with G2 likely to receive an invite directly to the Major. Now, I’m sure there’s some method in the madness I’m not privy to, but it’s surprising to see G2 allow its competitors to play catch-up in the VRS like this.

FURIA and Astralis join G2 in declining IEM Melbourne 2025 invites

FURIA and Astralis also declined invites to the event, but at this point, I’m not sure I’d classify either as “top teams,” no matter what the VRS says. Astralis, I can understand – if they want to put their focus on PGL Bucharest 2025 and getting a good result against (presumably) weaker opposition, then this makes sense. But FURIA? If my understanding of the rules is correct, then the last-minute decline of their spot at the ongoing PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 bars them from an invite to PGL Bucharest. This should make their participation in IEM Melbourne a no-brainer, but as it stands, we’ll be going quite a stretch without seeing the Brazilians on the server.