CIS & Europe Minors viewer's guide

With both the CIS and the European Minors set to start on Wednesday, we have put together a viewer's guide with all the information you need regarding the events.

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' YaskinJan 'wayLander' RahkonenAurimas 'Kvik' KvakšysKirill 'Boombl4' MikhailovDavid 'n0rb3r7' Danielyan Spirit #36 Vadim 'DavCost' VasilyevDmitriy 'Dimaoneshot' BandurkaDmitry 'S0tF1k' ForostyankoPavel 'COLDYY1' VeklenkoViktor 'sdy' Orudzhev Windigo #33 Kamen 'bubble' KostadinovViktor 'v1c7oR' DyankovYanko 'blocker' PanovGeorgi 'SHiPZ' GrigorovValentin 'poizon' Vasilev Valiance #34 Nemanja 'huNter-' KovačNestor 'LETN1' TanićNemanja 'nexa' IsakovićOtto 'ottoNd' SihvoRokas 'EspiranTo' Milasauskas Time is adjusted to your selected timezone Syman #117 Maksim 't0rick' ZaikinSanjar 'SANJI' KulievSanzhar 'neaLaN' IskhakovArtem 'iDISBALANCE' EgorovIlya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy Runtime #273 Sergey 'starix' IschukDmitry 'hooch' BogdanovDenis 'seized' KostinNikolaj 'kalinka' RysakovAlexander 'scoobyxie' Marynych Nemiga #62 Kirill 'hitMouse' TsarevVladimir 'ROBO' NeskeyAleksandr 'mds' RubetsRassim 'Jyo' ValijevIgor 'lollipop21k' Solodkov MOUZ #4 Tomáš 'oskar' ŠťastnýChris 'chrisJ' de JongMiikka 'suNny' KemppiMartin 'STYKO' StykRobin 'ropz' Kool AVANGAR #18 Bektiyar 'fitch' BahytovTimur 'buster' TulepovAidyn 'KrizzeN' TurlybekovAlexey 'Qikert' GolubevDzhami 'Jame' Ali OpTic #19 Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferRené 'cajunb' BorgJakob 'JUGi' HansenKristian 'k0nfig' WieneckeIsmail 'refrezh' Ali pro100 #46 Ivan 'AiyvaN' SemenetsDima 'def' LemeshchukVadim 'Flarich' KaretinLeonard 'kenzor' VolodarchukMareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis Vitality #23 Nathan 'NBK-' SchmittCédric 'RpK' GuipouyDan 'apEX' MadesclaireAlex 'ALEX' McMeekinMathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut ex-Space Soldiers #48 Engin 'MAJ3R' KüpeliYaman 'yam' ErgenekonBuğra 'Calyx' ArkınAhmet 'paz' KarahocaEngin 'ngiN' Kor ENCE #11 Aleksi 'allu' JalliJani 'Aerial' JussilaSami 'xseveN' LaasanenAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenJere 'sergej' Salo North #10 Casper 'cadiaN' MøllerPhilip 'aizy' AistrupMarkus 'Kjaerbye' KjærbyeNicklas 'gade' GadeValdemar 'valde' Bjørn Vangså Gambit #37 Mihail 'Dosia' StolyarovRustem 'mou' TelepovVladyslav 'bondik' NechyporchukNikolay 'mir' BityukovSergey 'Ax1Le' Rykhtorov