IEM Atlanta 2026: The group stage bracket is now locked in

Next week, the next major Counter-Strike 2 tournament will commence, as 16 of the best teams from around the world will be travelling to Atlanta in the United States to compete in the Intel Extreme Masters Atlanta tournament. With the first day of action planned for May 11 and the tournament running for around a week and concluding on May 17, the official bracket for the group stage has now been locked in.

Utilising a double-elimination format, the premise of the group stage will be to whittle down the 16 qualified teams to simply six playoffs squads, meaning 10 teams will not progress past this phase of the action. Playoffs squads will be determined by those who reach the upper bracket final of their respective groups (with the respective group winners getting first round byes in the playoffs) and also the singular team per group that survives the elimination bracket.

To this end, the groups and first match-ups for the group stage can be seen below.

Group A Upper Bracket Quarterfinals:

• Team Vitality vs. BC.Game Esports


• B8 vs. BetBoom Team


• PaiN Gaming vs. FaZe Clan


• NRG vs. FUT Esports

Group B Upper Bracket Quarterfinals:

• Natus Vincere vs. Passion UA


• Sinners Esports vs. GamerLegion


• Legacy vs. M80


• Team Liquid vs. Astralis

With all of these match-ups in mind, what are you expecting from IEM Atlanta? Will any team be able to stop Team Vitality in this event?