ESL reveals the 32 rosters of the IEM Cologne Major 2026

Thirty-two teams, five players each, and one extra name per team: the registered rosters of the IEM Cologne Major 2026 are now public. ESL, the tournament's organizer, announced them on April 22, 2026, and HLTV, the reference news site for Counter-Strike, published the full list the same afternoon.

The list comes 41 days before the first match of a tournament that runs from June 2 to June 21 in Cologne, Germany. On paper it should hold no surprise, because the rules of a Major freeze each team's lineup at the moment it is invited. In practice the weeks since the invitations have been busy, and the one free place on each roster, the substitute, shows where.

For most teams that place goes to a coach, a benched player or a prospect who is not expected to play. For three teams it goes to a player who will be in the starting five from the first day. For one more, BetBoom, nobody outside the team yet knows who will sit at the fifth computer.

HLTV report of April 22, 2026, on the rosters announced by ESL.

Why a Major lineup cannot simply be changed

A Major is one of the championships sponsored by Valve, the publisher of Counter-Strike 2, and its rules are written by Valve rather than by the organizer. Teams do not qualify through a bracket. They are invited according to the Valve Regional Standings, known as the VRS, a ranking the publisher computes from results. ESL said when it announced the event in August 2025 that the first VRS update of April 2026 would define the 32 invited teams. HLTV reported that update on April 6.

What is invited is a lineup, not a club. Valve's Major rulebook puts it in one line: the registered roster must match the invited roster, which it calls the Core Lineup. To that core a team may add one coach and one substitute, and the two may be the same person. If an invited roster is no longer intact, the rulebook says it does not take part and the invitation passes to the next-highest ranked roster.

HLTV summed up the consequence on April 18, when MOUZ changed two players: teams must use the lineup listed on the invite VRS of April 6, and may make only one change, through the substitute.

So a player who joined a team after April 6 has exactly one way into the Major: the substitute's place. That is the reading that makes sense of the three cases below.

Three substitutes who will start in Cologne

HLTV names three registered substitutes who are in fact starters.

The best-known name is karrigan. FaZe confirmed his departure on April 20, and Falcons confirmed his signing the same day while moving kyxsan to the bench, HLTV reported. The signing came two weeks after the invitations, so karrigan appears on ESL's list as the substitute. He will play the tournament from the start, alongside NiKo, TeSeS, m0NESY and kyousuke.

At MOUZ the registered substitute is xelex, promoted from the club's academy team, MOUZ NXT, on April 18. He takes the place of Jimpphat, who was benched that day together with Brollan. Because only one change is allowed, Brollan comes back for this one tournament: HLTV describes the Major as his last event with the team. The MOUZ five for Cologne is xertioN, torzsi, Spinx, xelex and Brollan. The fifth player MOUZ fields at its other spring events, jL, will not play the Major, HLTV reported. He is on a short-term loan from Natus Vincere, and ESL's list still carries him as Natus Vincere's substitute.

The third case is the least expected. Gaimin Gladiators secured their place at the Major on April 5, terminated the contract of felps on April 16 and announced fer on April 18, according to HLTV's reports on those days. He is registered as the substitute and will play with HEN1, NEKIZ, Luken and JOTA.

BetBoom, the one lineup nobody can confirm

BetBoom is the exception on the list. HLTV writes that it is not known who will play for the team in Cologne. The club told the site that it could not share any information yet, and added: "We need to wait for official announcements."

The uncertainty has a history. BetBoom earned its invitation with two stand-ins, zorte and FL4MUS, players brought in for a limited time in place of regular starters. HLTV reported on April 9 that zorte was staying for the season in place of ArtFr0st and that d1Ledez was returning to the starting roster. According to the report of April 22, d1Ledez's availability for the Major is in question because of his visa, and the loan that brought FL4MUS to the team ended after the qualifying period.

ESL's list names d1Ledez as BetBoom's registered substitute. Under the one-substitution rule, that leaves the team little room: the players who can take part are those of the invited lineup and that one name. BetBoom enters in Stage 1, the stage that opens the tournament.

Coaches, benched players and prospects

For the other 28 teams the substitute's place holds no announced starter. HLTV notes that most named a coach, a benched player or a prospect.

Twelve teams registered their coach, which the rulebook allows. They are Spirit with S0tF1k, FURIA with sidde, The MongolZ with maaRaa, PARIVISION with dastan, FUT with coolio, Legacy with adrrr, Monte with kakafu, 9z with BIT, NRG with daps, FlyQuest with AZR, THUNDER dOWNUNDER with viridian and Lynn Vision with GUM. For these teams the list holds six people in all, the five players and the coach, where the rules would allow seven.

Other teams chose a player. G2 registered tAk, BIG registered JBOEN, Aurora registered jottAAA, paiN registered saffee and Vitality registered lucaZ. None of them is announced as a starter.

Elsewhere in Stage 1 the lists hold familiar fives. Liquid is registered with NAF, EliGE, malbsMd, siuhy and ultimate, HEROIC with xfl0ud, nilo, susp, Chr1zN and yxngstxr, NRG with nitr0, Sonic, oSee, Grim and br0, and B8 with alex666, npl, kensizor, esenthial and s1zzi.

For the teams entering later the list also confirms the fives that earned the invitation. Spirit will line up with sh1ro, magixx, tN1R, zont1x and donk; Aurora with MAJ3R, XANTARES, woxic, soulfly and Wicadia; The MongolZ with bLitz, Techno, mzinho, 910 and cobrazera; Astralis with HooXi, phzy, jabbi, Staehr and ryu.

How the 32 teams are spread over three stages

The Major is played in four phases. In the first three, called stages, 16 teams meet in what the rulebook calls a Swiss bracket: a team always faces an opponent with the same record of wins and losses, three wins send it through and three losses send it home. Matches that decide advancement or elimination are played as a best-of-three, the first team to win two maps. Eight teams advance from each stage and join eight who were waiting.

The entry point matters for the rosters. A team that starts in Stage 3, such as Falcons or MOUZ, plays its first Major match with its new player well after the opening day. A team that starts in Stage 1, such as Gaimin Gladiators or BetBoom, has no such margin.

The field is not a copy of the world ranking. ESL said in August 2025 that places are allocated by region, reflecting how each region performed at the 2025 winter Major. In HLTV's ranking of April 20, FlyQuest is 54th, Sharks 50th and Lynn Vision 47th, and all three are in Cologne. FaZe, 17th in the same ranking, is not: HLTV reported on April 5 that the team had missed the invitation.

From the list to the first match on June 2

ESL set the calendar when it announced the event. The Major runs from June 2 to June 21. The last eight teams move to the LANXESS arena for the playoffs, a single-elimination bracket in which a loss ends the tournament: quarterfinals on June 18 and 19, semifinals on June 20 and the grand final on June 21. The prize pool is US$1.25 million.

It is the first Major in Cologne in a decade. The city, which ESL calls the Cathedral of Counter-Strike, hosted three earlier ones, won by Ninjas in Pyjamas in 2014, Fnatic in 2015 and SK Gaming in 2016. According to the organizer, this is its 11th Major since the first, held at DreamHack Winter in 2013.

Between now and then the registered rosters stay as published. Teams still have other tournaments to play before June, and nothing stops them from fielding different players there: MOUZ will use jL at PGL Astana and at the CS Asia Championships, HLTV reported. What they cannot do is bring a new name to Cologne.

The open point is BetBoom's. The club has tied its answer to official announcements still to come, and its lineup is the last line of the list that remains to be filled in.

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