ESL confirms IEM Cologne Major 2026 teams

ESL has officially revealed the 32 teams who will be taking part in the upcoming IEM Cologne Major 2026. Teams across all the three stages have been released with there being five teams taking part from the Asia and Oceania region. There will be four Asia-Pacific (APAC) teams in Stage 1 and one team in Stage 3. ESL's Director Esports for Counter-Strike, Marc Winther confirmed that all 32 teams have accepted the invites.

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Out of the 32 teams, 16 of them are in Stage 1 with 8 of them in Stage 2 and 8 in Stage 3. The APAC teams in Stage 1 are TYLOO, Lynn Vision, tHUNDER DOWNUNDER and FlyQuest while The MongolZ are the only Asian team in Stage 3 with there being no APAC team in Stage 2 yet from the invites. From the 16 teams in Stage 1, the top 8 will move to Stage 2 and join the already invited 8 teams. The top 8 teams from Stage 2 will then move to Stage 3 with the teams then following a Swiss BO3 group stage format before moving the Playoffs which will follow a single elimination moving into a BO5 final.

Vitality come in as the reigning Major champions, having won the last two Majors in Austin and Budapest. apEX and co. will start as the favourites once again as the organisation looks for its fourth Major while apEX's boys will be looking to equal Astralis' three consecutive Major title win record. The upcoming Major will also be the first Major in Cologne since ESL One Cologne 2016 which saw SK Gaming win the title. The IEM Cologne Major 2026 is set to take place between June 2 - June 21, 2026 in Cologne, Germany with a total prize pool of $1,250,000 on the line.