IEM Cologne 2025 Playoffs Prediction. Who will lift the first tier-1 trophy of the new season?
The Lanxess Arena will once again give us an incredible atmosphere and show why it’s called the cathedral of Counter-Strike. Only six teams will make it to the famous arena, and in this article we’ll try to predict how events will unfold over the next three days of the tournament. The main intrigue is whether Vitality can extend their winning streak, defend their title as reigning champions, and secure their second victory within the Grand Slam. Let’s analyze whether teams can upset apEX and company.
MOUZ
The mice unexpectedly broke their winning streak against Team Spirit and are forced not only to start their playoff journey from the quarterfinals but also found themselves in the same bracket as Vitality. To battle the reigning champions in the semifinals, they’ll need to defeat FURIA, and it must be admitted that this match is quite manageable for them. MOUZ were good enough against Team Spirit and lost two maps only in overtime. The mice handled the pressure and on both maps came back into the game after poor starts.
The main strength of the team at the moment is their belief in their teammate. You can see how strongly they support each other and don’t doubt the chosen game plan. It feels like they simply gather information about their opponent in the first rounds, quickly adapt, and seize the initiative.
In the match against FURIA they shouldn’t have problems, but Vitality still seems like an insurmountable opponent. If they approached previous meetings well-prepared and in game form, now they’re far from the form they showed at the Major. This very fact became the reason for their defeat to Team Spirit in the group stage – they got into the game too late, and Overpass turned out to be completely unprepared. Skill-based play isn’t the mice’s style, so this map could become another stumbling block in the playoffs.
FURIA
The Brazilian organization continues to surprise and be surprised by the results of April’s changes. Signing molodoy and YEKINDAR incredibly transformed the team, and this duo is literally carrying the legendary Brazilians on their shoulders. The sensation against Falcons continued in the match with G2, but now these are definitely not the opponents waiting for them in the playoffs. The mice won’t allow molodoy to rack up three frags and won’t approach him one by one due to overconfidence.
Now too much depends on the young sniper from Kazakhstan, so Danil won’t be able to carry his team to the next round here. Even if by some miracle the mice don’t show up to the server and FURIA advances, in the semifinals Vitality will simply need to announce their presence. The Brazilian trio performs very weakly – KSCERATO hides his potential in the lurker role, where 80% of the time he remains the last player on his team. FalleN is still trying to wait for molodoy’s death to pick up the AWP, and yuurih is simply inconsistent.
The map pool is quite comfortable for both sides, so FURIA won’t be able to gain an advantage even on their own pick. The match against MOUZ looks like too difficult a test, so the guys should just enjoy the atmosphere at Lanxess Arena and not think about the result.
NAVI
B1ad3’s charges managed to advance to the quarterfinals, but it must be admitted their group was quite weak. Victories against FaZe and NIP were enough for them to make the playoffs, which doesn’t look like a serious achievement. They could have even lost the game against NIP, which clearly doesn’t match expectations from the best team of 2024.
After jL’s departure, we predicted that the team would lack emotions, and overall we were right. NAVI now look like robots programmed by the best coach, and players understand how to react to opponents’ actions only after timeouts and clear instructions. The newcomer from the academy shows himself well precisely for this reason – he was clearly explained what to do, but when it comes to clutches he gets a bit confused.
NAVI’s success can also be linked to iM’s brilliant play, who started dropping 30 frags per map and enters the top three players of the tournament. Will the Romanian be able to maintain his momentum in the upcoming meeting against The MongolZ? Maybe. But one player won’t be enough to prevent the Mongolians from advancing to the semifinals.
The MongolZ
This team continues to prove that all their achievements over the past year are more than deserved. Most importantly, the Mongolians continue to progress, and they were obviously unlucky to hit their peak form during Vitality’s era. They repeatedly get eliminated by them in the late stages of tournaments, which happened again in the semifinal match.
In our understanding, they could quite try to take revenge in the grand final, but over five maps they’ll have too few chances. Regarding the match against NAVI, they are the undisputed favorites, and we shamelessly suggest discussing the potential meeting against Team Spirit.
We’ll talk about the Dragons a bit later, but looking ahead, they seem weaker than The MongolZ. Previously Techno4K would fall off for the Mongolians, but now he not only found stability but even started to stand out. The team has virtually no weak spots, and by leaving Overpass against Vitality they showed readiness to play this map. Therefore, apparently their main feature – playing all 7 maps – still allows them to remove opponents’ strongest map.
Team Spirit
Despite the Dragons taking first place in the group, their play didn’t impress us at all. Again everything depends on donk’s individual actions, and the match against MOUZ showed that with the right approach he can be outplayed. On Mirage, donk gave the opponent an entry frag almost every round, which the mice used excellently.
The newcomer also didn’t impress, and honestly, it’s not entirely clear why they changed him for Borya when absolutely nothing changed in the game. The Dragons won all meetings in the group, and zweih finished the group stage with a negative rating of 0.94. On stage he might not handle the pressure because results are expected from him, and the arena will clearly pressure them. The Dragons aren’t very loved by the European audience, which obviously won’t add confidence in the first match with spectators.
Spirit needs to hope that NAVI can defeat The MongolZ, and then donk will be quite enough to carry his team to the grand final. The Mongolians shoot too well to regularly lose duels to him, so Dana will have a hard time at Lanxess Arena.
Vitality
Without unnecessary words – just give them the cup. The reigning champions will most likely lift the trophy once again and together with ropz become two-time Cologne winners. In the first match against Astralis they were a bit shaky, but they still closed the meeting without losing a map.
Their individual skill-based play allows them not to worry about Overpass and even gave them another advantage, since unlike other teams they don’t need time to prepare the map. They can join the server and outplay teams without preparation.
MOUZ and especially FURIA don’t look like teams ready to stop them, and the BO5 grand final is obviously an advantage. It’s hard for teams to take even one map from Vitality, so how to take three from them? A mystery.
Chances of winning IEM Cologne 2025
Undoubtedly, the teams already in the semifinals have higher chances of victory than the rest. But as we already said, we expect to see a repeat of the Major grand final – Vitality vs The MongolZ.
- Vitality — 58.14%
- Spirit — 23.81%
- The MongolZ — 11.76%
- MOUZ — 8.00%
- NAVI — 5.88%
- FURIA — 2.50%
