IEM Katowice 2025 Power Rankings – Who Will Win?

After the immediate conclusion of BLAST Bounty Spring, the Counter-Strike calendar waits for no one. IEM Katowice 2025 is here, in what will go down as one of the most prestigious CS2 events of the year. With 24 teams heading to Poland, I’m excited to see the level of Counter-Strike on display as they battle for the chance to be crowned Kings (or in Imperial fe’s case, Queens) of Katowice.

I’ve taken a look at all the teams in IEM Katowice 2025 and ranked them based on a few different factors. Their appearance at BLAST Bounty is one, while roster moves are another. There’s also one major stand-in situation that affects one of the top teams, affecting my IEM Katowice Power Rankings massively.

Team Spirit to reclaim their crown?

Team Spirit come into IEM Katowice 2025 on the back of two consecutive trophy wins. The Shanghai Major and BLAST Bounty have cemented Team Spirit as the team to beat right now, but there’s something more significant on the line here. They’re also looking to defend their IEM Katowice trophy, which they won at the start of 2024 as donk exploded onto the Counter-Strike scene.

I’ve got Team Spirit at the very top of my IEM Katowice 2025 Power Rankings. It’s a relatively weak scene right now thanks to the sheer volume of roster moves at the top, so I’d be shocked if their consistency wasn’t enough to see them lift the trophy in Katowice’s Spodek Arena. If they do pull it off, I’m happy to pretty much write off the conversation around the best CS2 team in the world for the foreseeable future.

NAVI need a trophy

Compared to most esports organizations, NAVI are patient when it comes to giving time to players to get it together. Worrying results over the last few events won’t have NAVI hitting the panic button just yet, but they’ll undoubtedly want to get a trophy under their belt to stop the rot sooner rather than later.

Despite not winning a CS2 tournament since IEM Rio 2024 back in October, I still can’t help but place NAVI in second on my rankings. Is this an endorsement of NAVI’s extraordinarily high ceiling, or an indictment of the scene’s poor quality at the moment? Even I’m not quite sure at this point.

Potential IEM Katowice 2025 underdogs

Now, onto my personal favorite part: underdogs. Who doesn’t love to root for a plucky dark horse to shake up the scene? Our first is MOUZ. You may notice that despite not having to take part in the Play-In, I have MOUZ as low as 12th. After the surprise benching of siuhy, MOUZ are forced to compete at IEM Katowice 2025 with 16-year-old stand-in xelex thanks to archaic roster lock rules. Given it’s also Brollan’s first event as IGL, all the signs point to this being a swift stint in Poland for MOUZ. If they can put together a few solid results, it would be a great story.

You should also keep your eyes on Heroic. I was massively impressed by their showing in the online portion of BLAST Bounty Spring, and felt that if they hadn’t been forced into a stand-in on LAN, they could have caused more ruckus in the offline matches. Of this entirely new-look Heroic roster, it’s SunPayus who has impressed the most. He’s throwing it back to his ENCE days, and putting his torrid stint at Falcons behind him. He’s the key if Heroic are to wreak havoc at IEM Katowice 2025.

I want to give a mention to Imperial fe, too. Sure, I may have them last, but I liked what I saw from this team at BLAST Bounty Spring. What I liked less was the often condescending discourse surrounding them after their loss to NAVI. I witnessed a team with solid fundamentals and a strong grasp of how the game should be played at the top level. With a shaky FURIA up first, there’s absolutely no reason they can’t go and grab an early win at Katowice and prove themselves as history-makers once more. The girls aren’t just here to play at the big boy’s table – they’re here to win.