Find out how NA's teams are preparing for the IEM Cologne Major

Liquid, M80, and NRG will be North America's three representatives at the IEM Cologne Major when Stage One kicks off next week on June 2nd. With all of NA's teams starting in Stage One, there is precious little time before the all-important world championship begins.

Ahead of the start of the Major, Dust2.us decided to check in with our teams to find out where our region's teams are bootcamping, what they are doing to get ready for the Major, and if they have any thoughts ahead of the event.

M80

Starting with M80, Rory "dephh" Jackson told Dust2.us that the team are set to arrive in Cologne today, with their late arrival in Europe owing to the team having to play the ESL Challenger League Season 51 Finals in North America from May 26th to May 28th.

Overall, M80 have had very little time in Europe over the past few months as the team have had to juggle multiple NA tournaments and their recent trip to Shanghai for the CS Asia Championships 2026.

Regarding the team's mindset heading into the Major, dephh had this to say about his troops:

I need to give praise to the players on the team for the work they have put in since late February to now. Roman Imperium all the way up to qualifying the major has been both taxing on their bodies with the travel and tough mentally due to stresses of the constant VRS battle for the Major. Credit has to be given to the guys for working as hard as they have, without having a clear runway of practicing in Europe for an extended period of time.

We have had many ups and many downs in those periods but at the end of the day the Major is what we do it for.

For the first time since DraculaN I saw an uptick in mood and performance recently and have a really good feeling about the Major, considering we have some younger players without many majors and two Germans competing in their home regions.

M80 will start Stage One with a Bo1 versus Lynn Vision on June 2nd at 06:30AM.

NRG

Next up, Damian "daps" Steele let us know that the team are currently in the middle of a bootcamp at Liquid's Alienware Training Facility in Utrecht, Netherlands. In fact, the team are currently sharing the facility with Liquid with the two NA squads rubbing shoulders in the Dutch facility.

Unfortunately, Alexander "br0" Bro is not with the team due to a personal matter, with daps saying the team used him for two days of practice while using br0 for the next two days of practice.

Speaking about his team, daps had this to say:

Our results of late have been poor but we have played a lot of good teams close and had chances to win so it’s important that the players try to see some of the areas we’ve made improvements in and try to avoid getting discouraged even if we aren’t getting the wins we want yet.

NRG takes on GamerLegion on June 2nd at 08:30AM.

Liquid

As for Liquid, Viktor "flashie" Tamás Bea said that the team have been bootcamping in Utrecht, Netherlands since returning from CAC 2026 following elimination on May 21st. The four-day bootcamp is on home turf and will hopefully help Liquid get ready for their debut against BIG on June 2nd at 09:30AM.

If you want to see more of Liquid's training facility, here's a 2020 tour from when it first opened: