// Pick'em · IEM Cologne Major 2026

Stage 1 Pick'em

Stage 1 is over. The table is our forecast from before the first match, next to where each team finished.

Worked out afterwards, as the backtest was: on our Elo from the day before the stage and nothing after it. It was not published at the time.

Forecast and result

Chances are from before the first match. The last column is where each team finished.

Seed#	Team	3–02 slots	3–1 or 3–23–1 3–26 slots	2–3 or 1–32–3 1–3no slot	0–32 slots	Finished
1						3–1
Opens against NRG (seed 9) in a best of one and wins it in 68% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 33% 30% 20% 9% 6% 2% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 68% FlyQuest 43%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 20% At 2–0, best of three 48% MIBR 14%, BetBoom 13% At 0–1 32% FlyQuest 57%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 28% At 0–2, best of three 9% Gaimin Gladiators 14%, Liquid 14%
2						3–0
Opens against TYLOO (seed 10) in a best of one and wins it in 51% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 17% 24% 23% 16% 13% 7% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 51% Lynn Vision 22%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 17% At 2–0, best of three 30% BetBoom 15%, MIBR 11% At 0–1 49% FlyQuest 39%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 31% At 0–2, best of three 18% Gaimin Gladiators 13%, Liquid 12%
3						1–3
Opens against Sharks (seed 11) in a best of one and wins it in 49% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 11% 18% 19% 22% 19% 11% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 49% Lynn Vision 17%, Liquid 14% At 2–0, best of three 25% BetBoom 14%, GamerLegion 10% At 0–1 51% THUNDER dOWNUNDER 28%, FlyQuest 20% At 0–2, best of three 23% Gaimin Gladiators 13%, FlyQuest 11%
4						3–0
Opens against Gaimin Gladiators (seed 12) in a best of one and wins it in 70% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 27% 29% 21% 11% 8% 4% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 70% Sharks 15%, Lynn Vision 13% At 2–0, best of three 43% GamerLegion 14%, B8 10% At 0–1 30% THUNDER dOWNUNDER 21%, Liquid 18% At 0–2, best of three 11% FlyQuest 12%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 12%
5						3–2
Opens against Liquid (seed 13) in a best of one and wins it in 60% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 16% 23% 21% 18% 15% 7% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 60% M80 18%, Sharks 12% At 2–0, best of three 31% GamerLegion 15%, BetBoom 12% At 0–1 40% Gaimin Gladiators 21%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 16% At 0–2, best of three 17% THUNDER dOWNUNDER 13%, FlyQuest 12%
6						3–1
Opens against Lynn Vision (seed 14) in a best of one and wins it in 50% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 12% 21% 22% 19% 17% 9% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 50% MIBR 23%, BIG 21% At 2–0, best of three 26% GamerLegion 17%, BetBoom 13% At 0–1 50% Liquid 19%, Gaimin Gladiators 17% At 0–2, best of three 22% THUNDER dOWNUNDER 13%, FlyQuest 12%
7						3–1
Opens against THUNDER dOWNUNDER (seed 15) in a best of one and wins it in 65% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 18% 25% 22% 16% 13% 6% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 65% M80 18%, SINNERS 16% At 2–0, best of three 35% GamerLegion 19%, BetBoom 12% At 0–1 35% Gaimin Gladiators 15%, Liquid 13% At 0–2, best of three 15% Gaimin Gladiators 12%
8						0–3
Opens against FlyQuest (seed 16) in a best of one and wins it in 57% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 10% 18% 19% 22% 20% 11% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 57% MIBR 19%, BetBoom 14% At 2–0, best of three 26% GamerLegion 18%, BetBoom 11% At 0–1 43% NRG 20%, Gaimin Gladiators 14% At 0–2, best of three 22% Gaimin Gladiators 12%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 12%
9						2–3
Opens against GamerLegion (seed 1) in a best of one and wins it in 32% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 6% 14% 17% 21% 24% 18% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 32% SINNERS 17%, TYLOO 14% At 2–0, best of three 14% BetBoom 12%, MIBR 11% At 0–1 68% TYLOO 15%, SINNERS 13% At 0–2, best of three 36% FlyQuest 15%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 14%
10						3–2
Opens against B8 (seed 2) in a best of one and wins it in 49% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 14% 22% 23% 17% 15% 9% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 49% BetBoom 15%, BIG 14% At 2–0, best of three 25% GamerLegion 14%, BetBoom 12% At 0–1 51% NRG 20%, Sharks 17% At 0–2, best of three 22% FlyQuest 15%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 13%
11						1–3
Opens against HEROIC (seed 3) in a best of one and wins it in 51% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 10% 18% 20% 21% 20% 11% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 51% BetBoom 21%, BIG 15% At 2–0, best of three 23% GamerLegion 16%, BetBoom 12% At 0–1 49% Gaimin Gladiators 23%, TYLOO 18% At 0–2, best of three 25% THUNDER dOWNUNDER 14%, FlyQuest 14%
12						0–3
Opens against BetBoom (seed 4) in a best of one and wins it in 30% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 4% 9% 12% 21% 28% 26% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 30% BIG 18%, HEROIC 15% At 2–0, best of three 11% GamerLegion 17% At 0–1 70% Sharks 16%, M80 12% At 0–2, best of three 42% THUNDER dOWNUNDER 15%, FlyQuest 13%
13						2–3
Opens against BIG (seed 5) in a best of one and wins it in 40% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 5% 12% 15% 22% 26% 20% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 40% BetBoom 21%, B8 18% At 2–0, best of three 15% GamerLegion 17% At 0–1 60% M80 15%, NRG 13% At 0–2, best of three 35% THUNDER dOWNUNDER 13%, Gaimin Gladiators 11%
14						2–3
Opens against M80 (seed 6) in a best of one and wins it in 50% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 11% 19% 22% 19% 18% 11% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 50% GamerLegion 25%, B8 23% At 2–0, best of three 22% GamerLegion 15%, BetBoom 11% At 0–1 50% HEROIC 18%, NRG 13% At 0–2, best of three 26% Gaimin Gladiators 14%, THUNDER dOWNUNDER 13%
15						1–3
Opens against MIBR (seed 7) in a best of one and wins it in 35% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 4% 8% 11% 22% 29% 26% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 35% GamerLegion 39%, B8 24% At 2–0, best of three 11% BetBoom 13%, GamerLegion 10% At 0–1 65% B8 23%, HEROIC 22% At 0–2, best of three 42% Gaimin Gladiators 15%, NRG 12%
16						3–2
Opens against SINNERS (seed 8) in a best of one and wins it in 43% of runs. 3–0 3–1 3–2 2–3 1–3 0–3 5% 10% 14% 22% 27% 22% Record Gets there Most often against, when there At 1–0 43% GamerLegion 68%, B8 16% At 2–0, best of three 13% BetBoom 16%, BIG 11% At 0–1 57% B8 34%, GamerLegion 32% At 0–2, best of three 37% NRG 15%, Gaimin Gladiators 15%

In our setEach slot has its own colour, and its strength is the chance. It steps up at 50%. Each row sums to 100.

How the sets did

6 of 10

for our set, which completes the stage. Before the first match it had a 31% chance of 5 or more.

Picking by seed

4 of 10

3–02 of 2

GamerLegion Miss

BetBoom Hit

3–1 or 3–26 of 6

B8 Miss

BIG Hit

M80 Hit

MIBR Hit

TYLOO Hit

Lynn Vision Miss

0–32 of 2

Gaimin Gladiators Hit

THUNDER dOWNUNDER Miss

One stage is one draw, so a single result says little about the model. How our chances held up over the nine stages of the last three Majors is in the method.

How these numbers are made

Ours: every chance on this page, from 200,000 simulated runs of the stage on our per-map Elo rating. Forecast of 1 Jun 2026, model v1.5.
Valve's: the seeding, taken from the Regional Standings of 4 May 2026.
Pairings follow Valve's Major rulebook: round 1 is seed 1 against 9 and so on, later rounds pair within the same record by Difficulty Score and seed without rematches, and matches that can advance or eliminate a team are best of three.
The model's opinion: on the nine Swiss stages of Austin 2025, Budapest 2025 and Cologne 2026 the model was ahead of picking by seed, but not by more than chance can explain, so these numbers are not shown to beat seeding.
The whole method: the model, its sources, how well it has done and what it cannot see.