The Stakes are High at IEM Dallas

published 19 May 2025

The stakes have never been higher for HEROIC! Speaking of steaks, I hope our CS team likes BBQ with the amount of time they’re about to spend in Texas…

But getting back on topic... I know it’s rare for us here at HEROIC, but we’re getting serious for a second - for now, it’s all eyes on IEM Dallas. This pivotal tournament, which concludes on Sunday, will shape the start of the team’s next season as it’s the last opportunity to earn points before the May 25th & June 2nd VRS cutoffs.

The VRS cutoff determines the invites for:

Top 8 or 24 - IEM Cologne 2025 - Stage 1 Secured (June 2nd)
Top 15 - Esports World Cup 2025 (June 2nd)

The Road Ahead in Dallas

HEROIC currently has 1,456 VRS points, ranking us 17th globally and 14th in Europe. The most immediate concern will be the EWC 2025 with invites going out to the top 15 teams on June 2nd. With our absence from PGL Astana and gigachad hooxi leading Astralis to the grand-finals, they’ve overtaken us to secure their place at the competition leaving us to battle alongside FURIA (#16) to out-rank Complexity (#15) and Virtus.Pro (#14), who won’t be competing in Dallas, for the last 2 VRS spots.

VP (#14) sits 113 points above us, representing a minimum benchmark to hit to guarantee ourselves a top 15 spot, regardless of Furia’s results. If we beat Aurora (#6) in our opening match-up, it would be a monumental boost as we would gain 100 VRS points, and we have the advantage coming into the match as they’ll have just come off the back of a 15-hour travel day from Kazakhstan. We would then need to win just one more match against any team, or otherwise make it to the playoffs through the lower bracket but even this is easier said than done.

Our group in Dallas includes the #2, #3, #4, #6 & #7 ranked teams in the world… ‘Group of death’ would be an understatement! But our squad comes into the event off the back of two tournament wins, an 8 match win-streak and 2 weeks of preparation which is the best form we’ve been in and the best time to pull off some upsets.

HEROIC’s opening match at IEM Dallas starts on May 19th at 7pm CDT (or 2am on May 20th if you’re watching from Europe and calling in sick to work the next day), starting with Aurora - may the best Turk win! Join us in cheering on the squad as they chase crucial VRS points and a hot start heading into the Major!