Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge 2025 is the final Grand Slam awarding event for the year. The best European and North American teams have earned their spots through ESL World Rankings, IEM New York 2020, IEM Beijing-Haidian 2025 and DreamHack Open Fall 2020.
Now, they battle for $500,000 USD in prize money and a chance to end the season on a high note. The World’s best 8 teams are a who’s who this year round, with some of the most titled organizations ever in attendance.
© Intel Extreme Masters
IEM Global Challenge 2025 Overview & Teams
The online event features 8 teams all of whom are invited through their performance this fall and the season overall. Europe, North America, CIS and South America are all represented at this event based on how the invites turned out. Here’s a small breakdown on each participating team and their path to the Global Challenge.
First up, two teams had to replaced from the get go.
Team BIG will replace Chaos EC at this event. This comes as a huge disappointment for North American fans as Chaos was the absolute dominator all through this fall season. The reason behind the swap is the inability of Chaos EC members to travel to Europe for this event.
Evil Geniuses have also been replaced for the same reasons. Team Liquid was next in line based on North American rankings, which is honestly even better based on how both of these teams have performed recently.
The remainder of the line-up is filled out with Astralis, Natus Vincere, Vitality, Heroic, FURIA and Complexity.
The teams are divided into two GSL groups in a shortened Group Stage and Playoffs format. Each time will get only defeat before they play an elimination decider in their groups. The Playoffs start off straight into semi-finals, with the best two teams from each group playing each other for a shot at the final.
All in all, a total of 13 matches will be played at the Global Challenge.
IEM Global Challenge 2025 Markets
At first glance IEM Global Challenge betting odds are not as high as previous events. This comes due to the format and the clear favorites based on upon it. As was the case with IEM New York and IEM Beijing-Haidian however, the unpredictable nature of online play gives preferential odds in niche scenarios, and interesting bets for in-play betting. On top of that, the limited amount of matches played weekly gives us only a few shots at turning a profit at this event.
Lets take a glance at the odds available at IEM Beijing 2025 courtesy of GG.BET.
© IEM / GG.BET
We can observe relatively high odds on match-ups we consider top heavy and easy to predict. Pairing said bets with some interesting match specific outcomes and exotic market predictions, would result in in bet slips with multifold returns.
IEM Global Challenge 2025 Predictions
There are several ways to approach the upcoming days in competitive CS:GO. We can easily mix and match preditcions from various events to create bet slips. For the sake of staying focused on a single event, we predict the following outcomes. (Predicted winners or outcomes marked in bold).
Our selection is based only on the opening matches at IEM Global Challenge 2020.
BIG vs Vitality
There is not much to say about this match. Vitality is undefeated in their last 5 matches and their scoreline looks like this. They have beaten mousesports, Natus Vincere 2x, Astralis and their opponents, BIG.
On the other hand, BIG is riding a two-match losing streak and their individuals are not here right now. It is also important to mention that BIG only won three rounds over the course of two maps in the last bout these two teams played against each other.
To summarize, map pool will not play a big factor in this match as Vitality is miles ahead of BIG in this one. Everything but an easy win would be a big surprise.
Astralis vs Complexity
A couple of months ago, everyone was afraid of Complexity. Forward to December of 2020, and Complexity is slowly but surely falling out of the top 20. On top of that, they are still without a permanent fifth.
Contrary to that, Astralis is firing on all cylinders, especially now that gla1ve is an in-game leader again. All in all, this should be a warmup for Astralis. They will take this match seriously and we can expect a swift 2-0 scoreline. At the odds we mentioned above, this is an excellent bet against a team that is nowhere to be found.
Natus Vincere vs FURIA
Let’s face it. If they are having a good day, Natus Vincere can stomp anyone. They are also capable of losing to the biggest underdogs. On paper, FURIA does not seem like a big outsider but odds on them to win a map are very high.
They will have an excellent chance of stealing the show on Inferno. It is also important to mention that FURIA and Natus Vincere share similar map pools which favors this pick even more. Let’s hope that s1mple will not show up and dominate the server as this he is the only thing that is standing in our way.
Liquid vs Heroic
We were hoping that Liquid will wake up and prove to the CSGO fans that they are still alive. Sadly, this team is nowhere to be found right now as they suffered 3 straight defeats to FURIA, mousesports and Astralis.
Truth be told, Heroic is not looking that good either, but they are definitely in a better shape once compared to Liquid. They also nurture teamplay and not individual skill and this is why they should never be written off.
To make this match-up even worse for Liquid, Heroic will permaban Dust 2 and that is Liquid’s best map. However, they can opt-in for Overpass. Other than that, it should be a one-way street and Heroic will come out on top in this bout.
If you plan to put all four predictions into a single bet slip, GG.bet will give you a potential 5.39x return on your investment.
BIG vs Vitality – Vitality to win @ 1.23
Astralis vs Complexity – Astralis to win 2:0 @ 1.70
Natus Vincere vs FURIA – FURIA map handicap(+1.5) @ 1.61
Liquid vs Heroic – Heroic to win @ 1.60Combined odds: 5.39
Bet amount: 10$Potential Winnings: 53.9$
You can watch all of the matches played at IEM Beijing Online live on the official ESL CSGO Twitch Channel.
