ENCE will have one more chance to make it to the group stage in Poland through the play-in’s second round of the lower bracket.

Cloud9 beat ENCE 2-1 in the IEM Katowice Play-In following an opening round victory against IHC to punch their ticket to the tournament’s group stage. The series was a rematch of the IEM Dallas 2022 grand final, albeit ENCE were playing with Olek "⁠hades⁠" Miskiewicz back then, before the inclusion of Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García on the AWP, and Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski was standing in for an absent Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi.

Cloud9, who won that final in North America to raise their first trophy on LAN, came into this bout with a new roster as it was Timur "⁠buster⁠" Tulepov’s first day of official matches with the Russian squad. After the victory a relieved Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov confided that "it’s a huge difference in Cloud9 between interz and buster," when talking about how they blundered their Inferno map pick.

ENCE took a bold chance in the veto and picked the newest map in the pool, Anubis, in hopes of surprising the Russian squad, but the Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer-led squad trailed on the attack straight out of the gate, 1-7, before two multi-kill rounds by Paweł "⁠dycha⁠" Dycha shortened the distance on the scoreboard. In the end it was in vain, however, as they couldn’t muster another successful attack and trailed by nine at the half.

Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov and Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov, firing on all cylinders, had proved lethal with 17 kills each on the defense. The star AWPer and buster then won a key 2vs3 clutch to hit 14 after a 3-0 start by ENCE in the second half, which inched them close enough to secure their foes’ pick 16-10.

The series continued on Inferno with ENCE on the defense and Cloud9 attacking, but neither team managed to tower over the other as they struck back-and-forth and reached the half within a single round. Up by one, the European combine kept their hopes of living through the second map by winning the pistol round and gaining firm control on the attack. With in-game leader Snappi at the fore on the scoreboard they hit map point while giving up just a single round and smashed their way to the finish line, 16-8.

Vertigo started the same way as Inferno had with both teams playing incredibly close. Tied at 4-4 ENCE finally found an extra gear in the late rounds with individuals coming up big to double their round count and secure the lead at the half, although a late push from Cloud kept things close as opening multi-kill rounds by nafany put his team trailing by one before switching sides.

Cloud9 won the final pistol round by defusal to get the second half going, but ENCE struck back and regained the lead with an A hit on the forcebuy. Once the waters settled the Russians put up a wall; a four-kill defense on B by Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov exemplified the confidence with which he and his team had a grip on the late rounds of the series en route to a 16-13 victory.

ENCE are not out yet despite the loss and will go on to play the winner of Complexity vs. Permitta in the second round of the lower bracket. It will be a do-or-die series for a spot in the group stage taking place on Friday at 16:00 .

Cloud9	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolovsh1ro	61 - 41	+20	74.3	1.20
Sergey 'Ax1Le' RykhtorovAx1Le	52 - 50	+2	75.6	1.06
Abay 'HObbit' KhassenovHObbit	49 - 51	-2	71.3	1.04
Vladislav 'nafany' Gorshkovnafany	48 - 58	-10	73.8	1.01
Timur 'buster' Tulepovbuster	43 - 45	-2	61.0	0.97

ENCE	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Paweł 'dycha' Dychadycha	57 - 48	+9	75.2	1.15
Álvaro 'SunPayus' GarcíaSunPayus	52 - 45	+7	69.6	1.05
Valdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangsåvalde	47 - 45	+2	63.9	0.98
Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferSnappi	49 - 61	-12	77.8	0.97
Pavle 'Maden' BoškovićMaden	39 - 54	-15	64.0	0.87