Cloud9, the reigning champions, will face Grayhound in their opening best-of-one fixture.

ESL has revealed the groups and opening matchups for IEM Dallas, which is set to play host to 16 teams on May 29-June 4 and feature a $250,000 prize pool.

The opening fixtures will all be best-of-one affairs, with the remainder of the tournament following a best-of-three format. This includes the grand final on June 4, which was changed from the usual best-of-five setting when ESL announced their decision to host fewer BO5s for their Pro Tour Masters events back in April.

HEROIC, currently through to the BLAST.tv Paris Major semi-finals, headline the event in Dallas, Texas, and make the journey stateside as the world's No. 2 team. The Danes will begin their IEM Dallas Group A campaign with an opening bout versus 9z, who are the second-lowest-rated side ahead of Evil Geniuses.

FURIA, meanwhile, will lock horns with OG in their opening fixture of the Texan tournament. The Brazilians will be eager to put up a better showing after their disastrous performance at the BLAST.tv Paris Major, where Andrei "⁠arT⁠" Piovezan and company bowed out in the Legends Stage without a single win to their name.

The reigning IEM Dallas champions, Cloud9, have been seeded into Group B for the $250,000 competition; the Russians will aim to enjoy a strong start in their quest for back-to-back silverware as they take on Grayhound, a game that should easily go the way of the Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov-led lineup on paper.

Evil Geniuses, who earned a place at IEM Dallas as the 'Local Hero' invite, have an unenviable start to their tournament run in Group B. The American-majority roster will take on FaZe to kick things off, with Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's men set to be a favorite to make a deep run after recently making it to the BLAST.tv Paris Major playoffs before being felled in the quarter-finals by HEROIC.

The groups for IEM Dallas are:

Whilst the opening matchups are as follows:

Date	Matches
IEM Dallas 2023
29/05/2023	FURIA18:00 OG	Match
29/05/2023	G218:00 Nouns	Match
29/05/2023	fnatic19:20 MOUZ	Match
29/05/2023	HEROIC19:45 9z	Match
29/05/2023	ENCE20:45 Complexity	Match
29/05/2023	FaZe21:00 Evil Geniuses	Match
29/05/2023	Liquid22:05 Astralis	Match
29/05/2023	Cloud922:40 Grayhound	Match