IG-101, along with IG-102, were IG-100 MagnaGuards. Both served as General Grievous's droid bodyguards on the Invisible Hand during the Battle of Coruscant. He was programmed for automated combat learning and honed his abilities through extensive training sessions with Grievous. This training allowed him to simultaneously wield two electrostaffs.
Sometime before the Battle of Coruscant, IG-101 was piloting a Rogue-class starfighter through a foggy canyon on an unknown rocky planet alongside a Belbullab-22 heavy starfighter.
During the capture of Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, IG-101 and IG-102 were on the Invisible Hand's bridge as Grievous boasted. R2-D2, Skywalker's astromech, created a distraction, enabling Kenobi to retrieve his lightsaber from Grievous using the Force, followed by Skywalker. Grievous commanded the droids to engage, with IG-102 targeting Kenobi and IG-101 focusing on Skywalker. Although 101 initially challenged Skywalker, the Jedi exploited a defensive gap and bisected the droid, resulting in its destruction.