The Polish city of Katowice will host all four regional Minors leading to the first Major of 2019, with the CIS and the Europe tournaments kicking off January 16. As usual, teams will battle it out for two spots at the Major and their share of a $50,000 prize pool, but, this time around, the third-placed squads will get another chance to earn a ticket to the prestigious event as they will advance to the play-in tournament. IEM Katowice 2019 will be the third Major in the Polish city The Minors will kick off with a GSL group stage, with best-of-one opening matches and best-of-three series thereafter. The top two teams from both groups will then advance to the double-elimination, best-of-three playoffs. The CIS Minor, which features teams such as Gambit, AVANGAR and Runtime, is set to start at 10:00 on Wednesday, with the group draw looking as follows: Group A
Gambit
Nemiga
Spirit
Syman Group B
AVANGAR
pro100
Runtime
Winstrike Below you can find the full schedule: Wednesday, January 16 10:00 - Nemiga vs. Spirit | BO1 10:00 - Gambit vs. Syman | BO1 11:10 - Runtime vs. Winstrike | BO1 11:10 - AVANGAR vs. pro100 | BO1 12:20 - Group A winners' match | BO3 12:20 - Group B winners' match | BO3
Thursday, January 17 10:00 - Group A elimination match | BO3 10:00 - Group B elimination match | BO3 13:30 - Group A decider | BO3 13:30 - Group B decider | BO3
Friday, January 18 10:00 - Upper bracket semi-final #1 | BO3 13:30 - Upper bracket semi-final #2 | BO3
Saturday, January 19 10:00 - Lower bracket final | BO3 13:30 - Upper bracket final | BO3
Sunday, January 20 13:30 - Consolidation Final | BO3
As for the Europe Minor, headlined by the current No.4 team in the world, MOUZ, the groups look as follows: Group A
MOUZ
OpTic
Valiance
Vitality Group B
ENCE
ex-Space Soldiers
North
Windigo You can find the full schedule for the Europe Minor below: Wednesday, January 16 16:05 - Vitality vs. OpTic | BO1 16:05 - MOUZ vs. Valiance | BO1 17:15 - ex-Space Soldiers vs. ENCE | BO1 17:15 - North vs. Windigo | BO1 18:25 - Group A winners' match | BO3 18:25 - Group B winners' match | BO3
Thursday, January 17 17:15 - Group A elimination match | BO3 17:15 - Group B elimination match | BO3 20:45 - Group A decider | BO3 20:45 - Group B decider | BO3
Friday, January 18 17:15 - Upper bracket semi-final #1 | BO3 20:45 - Upper bracket semi-final #2 | BO3
Saturday, January 19 17:15 - Lower bracket final | BO3 20:45 - Upper bracket final | BO3
Sunday, January 20 17:15 - Consolidation Final | BO3
The on-air team for the Minors features a variety of familiar faces, including desk hosts Tres "stunna" Saranthus and James Banks. Sudhen "Bleh" Wahengbam, Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill, Jacob "Pimp" Winneche and Joona "natu" Leppänen will be acting as analysts in Katowice, while three pairs of commentators will be responsible for narrating the matches, as you can find below. Tres "stunna" Saranthus - Desk Host
James Banks - Desk Host
Sudhen "Bleh" Wahengbam – Analyst
Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill – Analyst
Jacob "Pimp" Winneche – Analyst
Joona "natu" Leppänen - Analyst
Hugo Byron – Commentator
Harry "JustHarry" Russell – Commentator
Conner "Scrawny" Girvan – Commentator
Mohan "Launders" Govindasamy – Commentator
Jason Kaplan – Commentator
Tom "Tombizz" Bissmire - Commentator
Finally, here is how the prize pool will be distributed in each Minor: 1. $30,000 + spot in New Challengers Stage 2. $15,000 + spot in New Challengers Stage 3. $5,000 + spot in Minor's Play-In tournament
 Winstrike #54  Georgi 'WorldEdit' Yaskin Jan 'wayLander' Rahkonen Aurimas 'Kvik' Kvakšys Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov David 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan  Spirit #36  Vadim 'DavCost' Vasilyev Dmitriy 'Dimaoneshot' Bandurka Dmitry 'S0tF1k' Forostyanko Pavel 'COLDYY1' Veklenko Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev  Windigo #33  Kamen 'bubble' Kostadinov Viktor 'v1c7oR' Dyankov Yanko 'blocker' Panov Georgi 'SHiPZ' Grigorov Valentin 'poizon' Vasilev  Valiance #34  Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač Nestor 'LETN1' Tanić Nemanja 'nexa' Isaković Otto 'ottoNd' Sihvo Rokas 'EspiranTo' Milasauskas Time is adjusted to your selected timezone  Syman #117  Maksim 't0rick' Zaikin Sanjar 'SANJI' Kuliev Sanzhar 'neaLaN' Iskhakov Artem 'iDISBALANCE' Egorov Ilya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy  Runtime #273  Sergey 'starix' Ischuk Dmitry 'hooch' Bogdanov Denis 'seized' Kostin Nikolaj 'kalinka' Rysakov Alexander 'scoobyxie' Marynych  Nemiga #62  Kirill 'hitMouse' Tsarev Vladimir 'ROBO' Neskey Aleksandr 'mds' Rubets Rassim 'Jyo' Valijev Igor 'lollipop21k' Solodkov  MOUZ #4  Tomáš 'oskar' Šťastný Chris 'chrisJ' de Jong Miikka 'suNny' Kemppi Martin 'STYKO' Styk Robin 'ropz' Kool  AVANGAR #18  Bektiyar 'fitch' Bahytov Timur 'buster' Tulepov Aidyn 'KrizzeN' Turlybekov Alexey 'Qikert' Golubev Dzhami 'Jame' Ali  OpTic #19  Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer René 'cajunb' Borg Jakob 'JUGi' Hansen Kristian 'k0nfig' Wienecke Ismail 'refrezh' Ali  pro100 #46  Ivan 'AiyvaN' Semenets Dima 'def' Lemeshchuk Vadim 'Flarich' Karetin Leonard 'kenzor' Volodarchuk Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis  Vitality #23  Nathan 'NBK-' Schmitt Cédric 'RpK' Guipouy Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire Alex 'ALEX' McMeekin Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut  ex-Space Soldiers #48  Engin 'MAJ3R' Küpeli Yaman 'yam' Ergenekon Buğra 'Calyx' Arkın Ahmet 'paz' Karahoca Engin 'ngiN' Kor  ENCE #11  Aleksi 'allu' Jalli Jani 'Aerial' Jussila Sami 'xseveN' Laasanen Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen Jere 'sergej' Salo   North #10   Casper 'cadiaN' Møller Philip 'aizy' Aistrup Markus 'Kjaerbye' Kjærbye Nicklas 'gade' Gade Valdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangså  Gambit #37  Mihail 'Dosia' Stolyarov Rustem 'mou' Telepov Vladyslav 'bondik' Nechyporchuk Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov Sergey 'Ax1Le' Rykhtorov |