The Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – Katowice Major 2019, also known as IEM Katowice Major 2019 or Katowice 2019, was the fourteenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship and the world championship for the thirteenth season of the Intel Extreme Masters.

It was held in Katowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland from February 13 – March 3, 2019.

[2] The top eight teams from the London Major ("Legends") received a bye to the second phase of the group stage while the other sixteen teams ("Challengers") had to go through the first and second group stages in order to reach the playoffs.

This event was the start of the second season of the Intel Grand Slam.

Astralis, Team Liquid, MIBR, Natus Vincere, and FaZe Clan were incoming Legends who retained that status, while BIG, HellRaisers, and compLexity Gaming were knocked out in the New Legends stage.

Renegades, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and ENCE advanced to the playoff stage to become Legends for the following Major.

The grand finals featured the world's number one team Astralis, which defeated Ninjas in Pyjamas and MIBR in the playoffs, and the underdog ENCE, which defeated the world's number two in Team Liquid and the world's number three in Natus Vincere.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve.

[5][6] The defending champions were Astralis, after winning their second championship at the FACEIT Major: London 2018.

The Major cycle began with four Minors, or regional qualifiers: Americas, Asia, CIS, and Europe.

In addition, because Valve reduced the number of direct Major invites from sixteen to fourteen, the third-place teams at each respective Minor advanced to a third-place qualifier to send two more teams to the Major.

This stage featured an eight team, best-of-three, single elimination bracket.

[7][8] ESL announced changes for this Major in the New Challengers and the New Legends stages.

Each team's Elo rating was used to determine all matchups after the first round, instead of the random draws of previous Majors.

[13] All Minors take place in Katowice to avoid visa issues, just like the FACEIT Major approach.

MVP PK was the first team to qualify for any Katowice 2019 Minor after defeating compatriot GOSU and Renegades rounded up the Asia Minor lineup after defeating Tainted Minds.

It was also streamed on ESL's YouTube channel, Steam.tv, and on CS:GO's in-game viewing client GOTV.

[22] Teams that were in the top 30 but failed to qualify for the major include North (#7, Denmark), mousesports (#10, Europe), Ghost Gaming (#16, United States), Valiance (#20, Serbia), 3DMAX (#24, France), Heroic (#25, Denmark), forZe (#26, Russia), Luminosity Gaming (#27, Brazil), Sprout Esports (#29, Germany), and x6tence Galaxy (#30, Sweden).

2Since end of FACEIT Major 3Best major placements may not necessarily reflect teams' current rosters The New Challengers stage took place from February 13 to February 17, 2019, at the ESL Arena.

Brackets were revealed shortly after FaZe defeated Cloud9 in the last map of the group stages.

In addition, the prize distribution, seed for the next major, roster, and coaches are shown.