IEM Melbourne 2025 is just around the corner, with 16 of the best CS2 teams from around the world flying to Australia for a Counter-Strike adventure that will live long in the memory. While CS events in Australia usually take place in Sydney, this time, it’s the city of Melbourne playing host between April 21st – 27th, with a massive prize pool of $1,000,000 on the line. That’s $300,000 in the player share, and $700,000 in the team share. It’s going to be a banger event – let’s explore all the details you need to know before the event kicks off!
Don’t miss a minute of the Aussie CS2 action at IEM Melbourne 2025 by heading over to the official ESL Twitch channel below. You can also find the ESL stream on YouTube, too!
Credit: ESL
If you’ve followed just about any 16-team ESL event lately, you know the drill here. Two double-elimination Groups funneled into a single-elimination bracket Playoffs. While the Swiss format is coming back into fashion in competitive Counter-Strike, no one quite gave ESL the memo yet.
Group Stage (April 21st – 24th)
Playoffs (April 25th – 27th)
With Team Spirit’s late withdrawal from IEM Melbourne 2025, the full team list heading down under is complete. It largely comprises the teams at the top of the Valve Regional Standings, with a few notable exceptions, including Team Spirit, Astralis, and Aurora. Check out every team attending IEM Melbourne 2025 below.
One thing stands out about the teams heading to this event. As it stands, Team Vitality are just one ESL tournament win away from completing the ESL Grand Slam and securing the massive $1,000,000 prize, making this a much more valuable event for this team in particular. With Spirit’s non-attendance, that job just got much easier for the team, with their biggest rivals at the top of the game choosing to skip out on this event.
Credit: Helena Kristiansson | ESL
Given their form throughout the rest of 2025, it would be very silly to predict anything but a Team Vitality tournament win at IEM Melbourne. They are the clear favorites to take home this trophy (as well as the ESL Grand Slam win), and having skipped out on PGL Bucharest 2025, Team Vitality should be able to come into this with some fresh ideas to ensure they stay on top.
The real question of interest is who can perhaps challenge them. It’s expected that this will be m0NESY’s first event in the Falcons jersey, and I reckon they’ll get a massive buff reuniting the AWPer with his former teammate NiKo. Hot on the heels of winning PGL Bucharest, Falcons could really make a statement with another deep run at IEM Melbourne 2025.
