The two highest-ranked teams in the world, G2 and HEROIC, will start in the semi-finals from opposite sides of the bracket.

With the group stage of IEM Katowice drawing to a close, the six-team playoff bracket that will play out in front of a packed audience in the Spodek Arena has been announced.

HEROIC and G2 won their groups and will therefore begin their on-stage run in the semi-finals on Saturday, where they will meet the winners of the two quarter-final matchups.

In the first quarter-final matchup, Vitality are set to clash with Liquid, who eliminated FaZe in the lower bracket final of the "group of death" and denied them a chance to claim the Intel Grand Slam title. Vitality had a slightly easier group and qualified for the playoffs with wins over Ninjas in Pyjamas and fnatic, but were trounced by HEROIC in their final group stage match.

The second quarter-final will see Natus Vincere taking on IEM Rio Major champions Outsiders. The majority-Ukrainian side showed much-improved performances at the Polish event after their lackluster start to the year at BLAST Groups. They took down Cloud9 and Liquid without losing a map to secure the playoff berth, but were no match for the in-form G2 side in the upper-bracket final.

On the other hand, Outsiders had a much more labored road to the playoffs as they began their tournament with a loss against fnatic, and thus dropped down to the lower bracket. They fought through Ninjas in Pyjamas and OG before winning a marathon three-map series against Complexity, which qualified them for the Spodek Arena in their debut event with Aleksandr "⁠KaiR0N-⁠" Anashkin.

The schedule for the playoffs of IEM Katowice looks as follows:

Date	Matches
IEM Katowice 2023
10/02/2023	Natus Vincere15:30 Outsiders	Match
10/02/2023	Liquid19:20 Vitality	Match
11/02/2023	HEROIC15:35 Natus Vincere	Match
11/02/2023	G219:00 Liquid	Match
12/02/2023	HEROIC16:00 G2	Match