Team Falcons, GamerLegion, The MongolZ, and Team Liquid will be starting the Playoffs in the quarterfinals.
Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Melbourne 2025 is looking to be one of the most pivotal Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) tournaments this year, as new powers have risen to challenge the status quo while old contenders have fallen by the wayside. But amid the chaos, 
Team Vitality and 
MOUZ continued to stake their claims as the best teams in the world by topping the Group Stage and securing semifinal berths in the Playoffs.
Four other teams also survived IEM Melbourne's 16-team double-elimination Group Stage to start the Playoffs in the quarterfinals: 
The MongolZ, 
GamerLegion, 
Team Liquid, and 
Team Falcons.
While the MongolZ have been a steady Playoff team for a while now, the three other quarterfinal teams have showed themselves to be rising challengers.
Despite shaky performances throughout 2025 so far, GamerLegion have once again secured a Playoff appearance and a chance to break through to the top tier of the scene. Then there's Liquid, who have been seemingly reinvigorated by 
Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek taking over as in-game leader and helping the team secure their first arena appearance of the year.
And, finally, Falcons are looking like a real threat following their massive signing of 
Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, reuniting the superstar AWPer with his former 
G2 Esports teammate in 
Nikola “NiKo” Kovač. The team have has shown flashes of their fearsome potential with m0NESY in Melbourne, and a strong showing in their first tournament with their second star may very well galvanise Falcons into a real contender come the BLAST.tv Austin Major in June.
But new challengers qualifying for the Playoffs meant that some of the contenders from yesteryear couldn't make it into the arena. 
Natus Vincere (NAVI) and 
FaZe Clan were among those that couldn't make it out of the Group Stage, joining the likes of 
3DMAX, 
Complexity Gaming, 
FlyQuest, 
MIBR, 
BIG, 
paiN Gaming, 
Virtus.pro (VP), and 
SAW.
Here's how all the action in the IEM Melbourne 2025 Group Stage went down:
Vitality, MOUZ lead stacked Playoff field at IEM Melbourne 2025
Vitality are still far and away the best CS2 team in the world right now, and they continued to prove themselves worthy of their position with a perfect run through Group B. They opened their campaign with two easy victories over FlyQuest (13-2 in Anubis, 13-8 in Nuke) and Liquid (13-5 in Mirage, 13-8 in Nuke). That pit Vitality in the group's upper bracket finals against the new-look Falcons, who were coming off a sweep over SAW (13-8 in Nuke, 13-9 in Dust II) and a reverse sweep over NAVI (9-13 in Inferno, 13-11 in Mirage, 13-4 in Dust II).
Even with m0NESY reuniting with NiKo, Vitality still overwhelmed Falcons behind their own star pairing of 
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and 
Robin “ropz” Kool with a 16-13 overtime win in Mirage and a 13-8 rout in Inferno. With that, Vitality secured a spot in the semifinals while Falcons had to content themselves with a quarterfinals start.
The third Playoff spot for Group B was then secured by Liquid, who bounced back from their loss to Vitality in the upper bracket with a strong lower bracket run. Liquid first took down MIBR in the lower bracket semifinals (13-6 in Anubis, 13-10 in Ancient) before taking down NAVI in three games at the lower bracket finals (13-6 in Anubis, 10-13 in Inferno, 13-8 in Ancient). With Liquid making their first arena appearance in 2025 by forcing their opponents to miss their first Playoffs of the year, doubts about NAVI's roster moving forward now loom ever larger.
Over in Group A, MOUZ made the semifinals after only dropping one map throughout the Group Stage. They first took down BIG in three games (6-13 in Inferno, 13-9 in Mirage, 13-8 in Ancient) before scoring back-to-back sweeps over GamerLegion (13-6 in Inferno, 16-13 in Nuke) and the MongolZ (13-9 in Mirage, 13-7 in Nuke).
With MOUZ and the MongolZ securing the first two Playoff spots for Group A, many expected FaZe to claim the third spot through the lower bracket. Things looked good for them following a sweep over 3DMAX in the lower bracket semifinals (13-1 in Dust II, 13-7 in Nuke), but they ran out of steam in a hard-fought lower bracket finals showdown against GamerLegion.
Despite heroics from 
Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski, FaZe fell to GamerLegion 19-16 overtime at Mirage and 13-11 at Nuke to miss out on the IEM Melbourne Playoffs. Just like NAVI, FaZe are sure to be facing difficult decisions regarding their roster as the squad continues to limp towards the Austin Major.
The IEM Melbourne 2025 Playoffs will follow a single-elimination format, with the top teams of each group from the Group Stage earning spots in the semifinals while the four other qualified teams will start in the quarterfinals. Here are the opening matchups:
Quarterfinals:
- Team Falcons vs GamerLegion
- The MongolZ vs Team Liquid
Semifinals:
- MOUZ vs winner of Team Falcons vs GamerLegion
- Team Vitality vs winner of The MongolZ vs Team Liquid
At stake in the IEM Melbourne Playoffs will be the lion's share of US$125,000 out of the tournament's US$300,000 prize pool. With that said, one team has more to win in Melbourne than others.
Vitality's victories in ESL Pro League Season 21 and IEM Katowice 2025 to go with their past triumph at IEM Cologne 2024 last year have put them in pole position for the ESL Grand Slam Season 5. Formerly known as the Intel Grand Slam, the ESL Grand Slam awards a US$1 million prize directly to the players of the team that wins four S-Tier ESL tournaments during a window of 10 consecutive events.
The team has five chances to win the ESL Grand Slam, with IEM Melbourne 2025 being the first of these lucrative opportunities. With that said, the remaining teams in Melbourne will be hungry to knock Vitality off their perch and earn the US$100,000 ‘giant killer' bonus bounty for denying the completion of the Grand Slam.
