IEM Cologne Major Stage One Round Four Recap: NRG, Liquid head to Round Five must-win matchups

The penultimate day of Stage One of the IEM Cologne 2026 Major has come to a close, seeing M80 lock in a spot in Stage Two while Liquid and NRG will need to fight on in Round Five to try and keep their Major dreams alive.

For NA, the day started with M80 coming out on top against NRG in an NA derby in a confident 2-0 series win. The series started on Ancient with M80 winning their CT-side 7-5 before dominating on their T-side to take the map 13-6. Moving into Inferno NRG won their CT-side 8-4 before M80 did them one better with a 9-2 CT-side to win the map 13-10. Overall, it felt like M80 was in control throughout the series, with the combined firepower of Michael "Swisher" Schmid and Joshua "JBa" Barutt surpassing anything NRG brought to the table.

Liquid's match, meanwhile, saw the team start with a quick and easy 13-5 win against HEROIC on Nuke powered by 20 kills from Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski. On Inferno Liquid started the map off with a 8-4 on their T-side before some scrappy play in the second half almost saw HEROIC force overtime. However, a massive 14-8 T-side from Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa ended up being a key factor in preventing overtime and a possible third map as Liquid took Inferno 13-11, knocking HEROIC out of the Major and keeping Liquid alive.

• M80 2-0 NRG on Ancient, Inferno

• Liquid 2-0 HEROIC on Nuke, Inferno

Stage One will come to a close tomorrow with the following matchups:

• TYLOO v. Lynn Vision

• Liquid v. FlyQuest

• NRG v. BIG