The eight Stage 2 (Legends) seeds for IEM Cologne 2026 confirmed their pre-Major bootcamp locations across the May 25 weekend. The roundup:
Stage 2 Legends bootcamps
- Vitality (Antwerp): Confirmed May 20. Bootcamp runs May 30-June 5 at their traditional pre-Major Belgian venue. The roster is unchanged for Cologne.
- NAVI (Cologne): Confirmed May 20. Eight-day bootcamp May 23-30 at the ESL Cologne practice facility - now in day 3.
- Spirit (Moscow): Spirit bootcamp at PARIVISION's Moscow training center May 26-June 1, then travel to Cologne June 1. PARIVISION's facility was offered to Spirit on a friendly-team-sharing basis, with both rosters scheduled to bootcamp back-to-back at the same venue.
- Falcons (Riyadh + Cologne): Falcons bootcamp at their Riyadh facility May 24-29, then travel to Cologne arrival May 31. The split keeps the roster in their home server environment for the bulk of the prep window before the time-zone shift.
- MOUZ (Berlin): MOUZ bootcamp at the Mythic Studios Berlin facility May 26-31, then drive to Cologne June 1. The shorter travel keeps the roster on European server prep without disrupting practice continuity.
- FURIA (Berlin): FURIA take the same Mythic Studios Berlin slot as MOUZ but on May 21-26 (FURIA finished a day before MOUZ moved in). The roster then travelled to Cologne May 27 for the longest in-city pre-Major prep among the Legends.
- PARIVISION (Moscow): Home-facility bootcamp May 23-31 (the same facility hosting Spirit afterwards), then Cologne travel June 1.
- The MongolZ (Cologne): The MongolZ travelled to Cologne early (May 24) for a ten-day in-city prep block before the Major, the longest pre-Major presence among the Legends seeds. The team is renting practice rooms from a tier-2 Berlin organisation's secondary Cologne facility.
Aurora skip the bootcamp tradition
Aurora are the structural outlier: the roster will stay at their Almaty base until the May 31 travel day, with no dedicated bootcamp on the schedule. The team have stated in past interviews that their default-practice cadence at the Almaty facility is sufficient prep, and they prefer arriving fresh to a tournament city rather than compressing two travel cycles inside a two-week window. The approach has produced two tier-1 final appearances in 2026 already, so the data does not yet contradict the methodology.
Stage 1 (Challengers) bootcamps
Of the 16 Stage 1 sides, eleven confirmed bootcamps at their home facilities or in regional partner venues. Notable exceptions: paiN bootcamp in Brasília (their first team-house bootcamp since 2024), Lynn Vision in Shanghai with a sponsor-funded facility upgrade, and Chinggis Warriors bootcamp in Ulaanbaatar with the Mongolian esports federation underwriting the prep block as part of the team's debut Major.
