*** UPDATED with 2012 tournaments. ***

*** No change in the rankings. Ukraine would have top Germany with one more gold or two more silvers, but that's it !***


Hey guys !

Here we are with a new super big ranking. Basically, I just added all the country rankings from my previous blog to get this one. It's a total of 144 tournaments, 12 years of Counter-Strike and a gazillion matches !

I ordered it by looking first at the number of gold medals, then silver, etc...

I wrote about all the countries with at least one win, sorry for the others ! I tried to look at the trends of some countries, their best years, that kind of stuff.


1. Sweden (69 gold, 56 silver, 31 bronze, 156 medals in total)

Sweden's number are just completely crazy. 150 medals, it's more than one third of the entire number of medals given during eleven years of tournaments. And Sweden won 66 of the 144 events I gathered in those blogs : that's a 46% win ratio. Sweden was "country of the year" medal-wise every year since CS is played. And the Swedes won (multiple) titles every year. No other country can compare to Sweden CS-wise. In fact, you have to add Denmark, Poland, Ukraine, Germany and USA to beat their total of medals. Except Koreans on SC:BW, I can't really think of any discipline or sport dominated that bad by a country. NiP, EYE, fnatic, GoL, SK, Begrip, MYM, Lions... Whenever CS dies, it will be remember as a game mastered by Swedes.

2. Poland (17-8-11 : 36)

What's completely ridiculous about Poland is that these 34 medals were won by just 6 guys. And that Golden Six got 16 titles, second best total after Sweden. The Poles gained their first medal, a gold one at SEC, in 2005. And then they never stopped. Best years : 8 medals in 2009, 8 medals (5 titles) in 2011. And when you think that they missed dozens of events because of lack of sponsorship... They could be at 50+ medals right now. But they are still playing, so who knows ?

3. Denmark (12-20-17 : 49)

Denmark started really well with 4 medals in 2001, and 3 finals lost. A trend - losing finals - which the Danes mastered like no one else. Danish teams played 27 finals, they won "only" 9 of them. Nobody got a worse win/lose ratio execpt South Korea, but with way less finals played. Also Denmark was always a good country, but it started winning a lot of medals with the NoA/mTw team in 2007. Two great years for the Danes. Obviously 2008, the mTw year, with 8 medals. And 2010 with 9 medals, still thanks to a really strong mTw squad, but also with medals from Ravens and Full Gaming.

4. Germany (9-12-20 : 41)

With Sweden, Germany is the only country that won medals every year of CS. The best year for the Germans was 2008 with 8 medals, thanks to the great mousesports team and a pretty good ALTERNATE squad. Otherwise, it's really spread on all the years, showing that no German team really dominated for a long time, gathering tons of medals in one year. And oddly, almost half of Germany's medals are made of bronze. Some are more serious than others about 3rd place finals...

5. Ukraine (9-11-13 : 33)

That is a young country on the scene. Ukraine had to wait 2007 to earn its first medal, a bronze at WCG. And then it started for good. Obviously Na'Vi contributed a lot to that total : 20 medals won during 2010+2011. 2010 was the best year with 11 medals, Ukraine being the only country (with Sweden of course) to reach a double digits number during just one year.

6. Norway (8-6-6 : 20)

And now an old country. It almost seems that Ukraine replaced Norway on the CS map, because the last year when Norway won a medal was 2007, the year Ukraine got its first. Until 2006, Norway was the 2nd best country title-wise. And you can also add that XeqtR, DarK and elemeNt won a lot of medals for Sweden teams, which doesn't count on that ranking. Best year : 2005 with 7 medals, 3 titles, team9, Catch-Gamer, NoA. And after 2007, blank.

7. USA (6-8-9 : 23)

Almost the same story here. 4th country medal-wise until 2006. Pretty consistent throughout the years. coL, 3D, Rival. ESWC, WCG and CPL titles. And then CGS came in 2007 and USA got a neat 0-0-0 that year. Then the Americains managed to grab some more medals thanks to EG and coL. But 2011 was a blank year again and it looks like it's definitive that time. Anyway USA is the first non-european country in the list, it remembers us that CS used to be a big USA vs Europe thing in the early days.

8. Brazil (6-2-3 : 11)

The Brazilians prefer the gold. 10 medals but 6 titles, that's a pretty good ratio. Everything happened in just 4 years, from 2006 to 2009. Blank before, blank after. The top brazilian scene lived and died with MiBR, even if the organisation officialy closed only a few months ago.

9. Finland (4-7-13 : 24)

Finnish teams, always threatening underdogs, never favorites : only 4 golds for 23 medals. But Finland managed to win at least one medal every year, except 2002. That country has always had one really good team to compete against the best : Z, All*, DSky, astralis, Wings, Serious, Roccat, WinFakt.

10. Russia (4-6-3 : 13)

Until 2011 with M5, Russia never had a truly top team. But Russian teams were always known to cause upsets and Virtus.pro was able to get some medals from 2004 to 2007. Best year : 2011 with 3 medals, one of each metal.

11. China (3-2-1 : 6)

Chinese teams were known to be good at home. Which is true as they won 5 of their 6 medals in China. First medal in 2005 with a big WEG 3 victory. Two more in 2006 and then nothing for two years. TyLoo gathered three more medals during 2009 and 2010.

12. France (2-3-7 : 12)

France is like a worse version of Finland. Always there to get one or two medals. Between 2001 and 2009, France got at least one medal each year (except 2003). Best year was 2007, 3 medals thanks to emuLate. It has been two years that France is more like Norway and USA, 0-0-0.

13. South Korea (1-7-5 : 13)

8 finals for the Koreans, only one win. That's tough. Most of these medals were gathered by solo's team, but Lunatic-Hai and MaveN won some too. First medal in 2004. Best year : 2008, 2 silvers and 2 bronzes.

14. Canada (1-3-0 : 4)

Canada was an OK country in the early days. The Canadians managed to grab two medals at the two first WCG, a gold and a silver. But their only serious team was EG for years and their only medal after 2002 was a silver one at CPL Summer 2005. Canada also suffered from their proximity with USA as almost all their best players went to play for USA teams : Steel, shaGuar and Grt. That's a shame because these 3 plus Stevenson and a random fifth would have surely formed a top team.

15. Spain (1-1-2 : 4)

Spain became known for the x6tence team. During two years, 2005 and 2006, x6tence constantly improved, being probably a top 10 world team for some months in 2006. But when MusambaN1 retired, x6tence never found its way back at the top. Spain added one last medal in 2009 with a Ledpc team lead by a back from retirement MusambaN1.

16. Austria (0-1-2 : 3)
17. Bulgaria (0-1-0 : 1)
17. Kazakhstan (0-1-0 : 1)
19. Belgium (0-0-1 : 1)
19. United Kingdom (0-0-1 : 1)
19. Turkey (0-0-1 : 1)
19. Romania (0-0-1 : 1)
19. Singapore (0-0-1 : 1)

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And to finish, I just did a quick "Continent Ranking". Try not to argue about the "continent" definition, I just put the three big "regions" of the world where CS was played at a high level.

Continent Ranking

1. Europe (127-123-123 : 373) / 15 countries
2. America (13-13-11 : 27) / 3 countries
3. Asia (4-10-8 : 22) / 5 countries

Well, nothing much to say except that CS is a Europe thing.