IEM Cologne Major: Opening matchups revealed

ESL has just revealed the opening matchups for Stage 1 of the IEM Cologne 2026 Major. Stage 1 of the Cologne Major begins with sixteen teams going through a Swiss system iteration to filter out the top half who join the eight invited teams in the next stage. TYLOO and Lynn Vision are the only Asian teams in the first stage.

TYLOO will take on B8 and Lynn Vision will take on M80 to kick off their Major campaigns. From the broader Asia-Pacific region, Australian teams FlyQuest and THUNDER dOWNUNDER gear up for their matches against Sinners and MIBR in the opening round. The opening round will feature best-of-one matches and the bracket switches to best-of-threes for qualification and elimination matches.

Here's how the opening round of the Cologne Major has shaped up:

• GamerLegion vs NRG

• B8 vs TYLOO

• HEROIC vs Sharks

• BetBoom vs Gaimin Gladiators

• BIG vs Liquid

• M80 vs Lynn Vision

• MIBR vs THUNDER dOWNUNDER

• Sinners vs FlyQuest

The opening round of Stage 1 of the IEM Cologne 2026 Major begins in a couple weeks on 2nd June. All matches will run side by side at 04:00 PM IST as per the current schedule. The MongolZ will start directly in Stage 3 alongside Vitality, Falcons, NAVI, FURIA, PARIVISION, MOUZ and Aurora.