Stage 2 (Legends) of IEM Cologne Major 2026 closed June 10 with eight advancers locked into the Stage 3 (Champions) bracket. The final advancer table:
The eight Champions advancers
- Vitality (3-0): opened with three clean wins against 3DMAX, Spirit, and Falcons. The world No. 1 closed Stage 2 without dropping a map after the Spirit Day 2 13-10 result.
- The MongolZ (3-0): the story of the Major. Beat GamerLegion (Stage 1 favourite), Aurora, and NAVI 2-1 in the 2-0 advancement bo3 on Day 3. First Mongolian-region side ever to reach a Champions bracket.
- Spirit (3-1): bounced back from the Day 2 Vitality loss with wins over B8 and Falcons in the 2-1 advancement bo3.
- NAVI (3-1): dropped Day 3 to MongolZ 1-2, then closed paiN in the 2-1 bo3 with a 2-0 sweep.
- MOUZ (3-1): closed Aurora 2-1 in the Day 4 bo3.
- Falcons (3-2): the longest path to Champions among the advancers — 2-0 Day 1, dropped Day 3 to Vitality, dropped Day 4 to Spirit, then closed HEROIC 2-0 in the Day 5 bo3.
- paiN (3-2): first Brazilian side at a Major Champions bracket since FURIA at IEM Cologne 2024. The Stage 1 3-0 closeout side bounced back from the Aurora and NAVI losses with a Day 5 2-1 over B8.
- Aurora (3-2): the no-bootcamp side that opened with the paiN upset, dropped two consecutive Days, then closed GamerLegion 2-1 in the Day 5 bo3 for the final Champions slot.
The eight eliminated
FURIA (1-3), BetBoom (1-3), 3DMAX (1-3), Metizport (0-3), FlyQuest (0-3), HEROIC (2-3), B8 (2-3), and GamerLegion (2-3). GamerLegion's path is the standout elimination — the Stage 1 consensus favourite at 88% advancement probability closed Stage 1 at 3-0, then went 0-2 to open Stage 2 (MongolZ + paiN), survived two elimination bo3s, then fell to Aurora in the final 2-2 round. The single-Major drop from Stage 1 favourite to Stage 2 elimination is the largest gap in CS2 Major history.
What comes next
Stage 3 (Champions) bracket pairings reveal at 12:00 CEST on June 11. The four-day build-down window June 14-16 closes with the LANXESS arena opening ceremony on June 17 ahead of the Stage 3 quarterfinals. Champions teams stay in Cologne through the build-down with practice access at the ESL Cologne studio.
