We now present our Team ranking from the end of December 2011, a month during which World Cyber Games took place. It is important to note that this ranking doesn't represent the entire year 2011, but only the current standings at the end of the month.

Before we present the fifth edition of our Team ranking, it is important to explain why this ranking doesn't reflect the entire year 2011, but only the standings at the moment at the end of December.

As you could see when we explained how the ranking is being made when we first started it in August, the points from older events decrease as time passes. Therefore, the current ranking attempts to show the most realistic picture at a selected time, giving the more recent results more weight.

That is not suitable for reviewing an entire year, so we will in addition to this article about the current standings at the end of December, present you another article later which will contain a ranking where all the results from 2011 are weighed equally.

The only LAN event in December was World Cyber Games that took place in Busan, South Korea. Although most of the big names missed the event, in the end the two of the current leaders on our ranking met in the final.

ESC Gaming edged out SK Gaming in three maps to bring Poland their third gold, while the bronze went to Russia, as Moscow Five outplayed NEXT from Kazakhstan.

WCG
1st	ESC Gaming
2nd	SK Gaming
3rd	Moscow Five
4th	NEXT
5-8th	DTS
5-8th	eSahara
5-8th	IGG
5-8th	mandic

The other December tournament was the final qualifier for IEM6 Global Challenge Kiev. It took place in the second half of the month when surprisingly Moscow Five and Lions topped the upper bracket, while fnatic and SK Gaming also claimed the spots from the lower bracket.

IEM6 GC Kiev final qual
fnatic	Moscow Five
Lions	SK Gaming

With most of the top teams missing out on the main event of the month, WCG, how many changes occured in the ranking after December? The number two team in the ranking defeated the leaders in the final, but was it enough to overtake their spot?

Let's take a closer look at the top 10 teams of December and see what affected their place on the list. 

10. IGG

Romania's representative IGG earned their points by reaching the quarter-final of WCG, but despite that they didn't have a particularly positive performance. They started with a loss to Georgian FRAGGED BY, and still made it to playoffs where after overcoming Azerbaijan's FiRENATION they lost to NEXT from Kazakhstan and finished in the top8.

9. fnatic

Last edition's team of the month, fnatic, didn't take part in WCG, but they were still in action at the IEM6 GC Kiev qualifier. Although not in a flawless way, after losing to Lions in the upper bracket, they secured a direct spot for the Kiev event by defeating Anexis and mousesports in the lower bracket's latter stages. That brought them enough points to still make the list this month at 9th place.

Top matches:	GC Kiev qual	fnatic	16-4	Fear Factory
	GC Kiev qual	fnatic	16-8	Alternate
	GC Kiev qual	fnatic	16-9	Fear Factory
	GC Kiev qual	fnatic	16-8	Anexis
	GC Kiev qual	fnatic	16-13	mousesports
Results:	qualified for IEM6 GC Kiev

8. mandic

The best Brazilian team in the last few years, now under their recently acquired organization mandic, took advantage of their comfortable rout and easily reached the quarter-final. There they met Moscow Five in a very interesting match, but the Russians were too strong and mandic was left without a chance to fight for the medals. Their convincing campaign up until the quarter-final brought them the 8th spot of the month.

7. DTS

Out of the defeated quarter-finalists at WCG, the best impression was left by DTS. Unlike the rest, Ukraine's surprising representative defeated two notable teams on its way to top8, Defining Stars in the group stage and Virtus.pro in the first round of playoffs. Although DTS was stopped by SK Gaming easily in the end, they still earned the 7th most points in the month.

Top matches:	WCG	DTS	2-0	Virtus.pro
	WCG	DTS	21-9	Defining Stars
Results:	5-8th at WCG 2011

6. Lions

Coming in at number six are Lions, the best placed team that didn't attend WCG. With their form on the rise, after the 2nd place at DH Winter, the Swedes eased through the IEM6 GC Kiev final qualifier, taking out x6tence, fnatic and WinFakt to earn a direct spot for Kiev.

Top matches:	GC Kiev qual	Lions	16-8	x6tence
	GC Kiev qual	Lions	16-8	fnatic
	GC Kiev qual	Lions	16-4	WinFakt
Results:	qualified for IEM6 GC Kiev

5. eSahara

The French representative Electronic Sahara attended WCG with a mixed lineup, missing its star player Christophe "SIXER" Xia. They still put in a solid performance, especially thanks to defeating TyLoo in their opening match. After topping the group, eSahara also beat Executioners, only to be stopped by the Poles of ESC Gaming in the quarter-final.

The French team also earned some points by attending IEM6 GC Kiev final qualifier later in the month. They didn't make it far though, and in the end the Polish team ESC Gaming was once again fatal for the French, knocking them out in the lower bracket.

Overall, thanks to mediocre success in both December's events, eSahara makes it to 5th place of the month.

Top matches:	WCG	eSahara	16-14	TyLoo
Results:	5-8th at WCG 2011

4. NEXT

The remainder of the monthly ranking is ordered the same way as WCG's final standings, starting with Kazakhstan's NEXT who finished 4th. Out of the four semi-finalists, NEXT probably had the easiest campaign, overcoming ENTiTY and IGG in the playoffs, but in the end losing to ESC Gaming in the semi-final and then in the bronze medals match to Moscow Five.

Top matches:	WCG	NEXT	2-1	ENTiTY
Results:	4th at WCG 2011

3. Moscow Five

After an excellent run of form in the previous few months, culminating in November when they won MSI BEAT IT Russia, Moscow Five came into WCG as one of the favorites and as one of the only three of our top10 teams in attendance.

The Russians fulfilled the expectations by finishing in 3rd place, after a solid road on which they beat project_kr and mandic, before succumbing to SK Gaming in the semi-final. In the 3rd place decider they outplayed NEXT to finish their year 2011 on a podium.

They also put in an excellent performance in the IEM6 GC Kiev qualifier, where they beat ESC Gaming and mousesports among others to secure a spot for Kiev.

Top matches:	WCG	Moscow Five	2-0	project_kr
	WCG	Moscow Five	2-0	mandic
	GC Kiev qual	Moscow Five	21-19	ESC Gaming
	GC Kiev qual	Moscow Five	16-13	mousesports
Results:	3rd at WCG 2011
	qualified for IEM6 GC Kiev

2. SK Gaming

Despite of their hot and cold shape before WCG, SK Gaming came into the event as the main favorite, at least according to our ranking which they were on top of at the end of November.

After facing a stern test against TyLoo, SK overran DTS and edged out Moscow Five to reach the final of WCG, where they would meet the Golden Five of ESC Gaming. In another one of their classic encounters, SK ended up on the losing end after three maps.

Later in the month SK qualified for IEM6 GC Kiev after minor trouble against WinFakt, who defeated them 26-23 in the upper bracket. However, the Swedes took their revenge against the Finns later in the lower bracket and secured a direct spot.

Top matches:	WCG	SK Gaming	2-1	TyLoo
	WCG	SK Gaming	2-0	DTS
	WCG	SK Gaming	2-0	Moscow Five
	GC Kiev qual	SK Gaming	16-7	Natus Vincere
	GC Kiev qual	SK Gaming	16-12	WinFakt
Results:	2nd at WCG
	qualified for IEM6 GC Kiev

1. ESC Gaming

The Polish squad, formerly named AGAiN, attended WCG as their first event since joining their new ESC Gaming organization. Following the poor form in the two months without a home, the Poles were right back at the top in Korea, delighting their fans with a win over SK Gaming in the final.

Due to that WCG victory, they earned the title of Team of the month for December 2011, despite another disappointing online performance in the IEM6 GC Kiev qualifier.

Top matches:	WCG	ESC Gaming	23-7	Virtus.pro
	WCG	ESC Gaming	2-0	Defining Stars
	WCG	ESC Gaming	2-0	eSahara
	WCG	ESC Gaming	2-1	SK Gaming
	GC Kiev qual	ESC Gaming	16-6	eSahara
Results:	1st at WCG

Let's take a look at the overall table with the top 10 teams of the month.

Place		Points		Teams
1.		240.52		ESC Gaming
2.		183.25		SK Gaming
3.		138.31		Moscow Five
4.		62.12		NEXT
5.		58.05		eSahara
6.		54.52		Lions
7.		49.67		DTS
8.		49.00		mandic
9.		41.38		fnatic
10.		37.10		IGG

Not much changed in the overall ranking after December, as most of the movement in the list was caused by the disbandment of the Swedish-Norwegian ESC Gaming squad, who called it quits while they were ranked 8th in the world.

SK Gaming held onto the top spot, but due to the loss to the new lineup of ESC Gaming (former AGAiN) in the final of WCG, the difference between the two is now further reduced.

Moscow Five's successful month saw them climb up to 5th place ahead of mousesports and they even built up a minor lead, but the Russians are still far from fourth placed fnatic.

Brazilians from mandic make a comeback after several months of inactivity, as their points from WCG, coupled with the same lineup's points from earlier in the year, bring them straight to the 12th spot.

The other new names in the top20 include WCG participants Defining Stars and the entirely new entry NEXT, who finished 4th in their only international appearance of the year.

Evo	Place		Points		Teams
-	1.		1396.97		SK Gaming
-	2.		1323.19		ESC Gaming
-	3.		958.12		Natus Vincere
-	4.		780.66		fnatic
+1	5.		518.34		Moscow Five
-1	6.		431.94		mousesports
-	7.		419.06		WinFakt
+1	8.		384.74		Lions
+1	9.		310.73		DTS
+1	10.		255.99		Anexis
+1	11.		181.43		eSahara
E	12.		101.67		mandic
+1	13.		91.28		KerchNET
+1	14.		89.85		Virtus.pro
+2	15.		76.25		Alternate
-	16.		76.13		Fear Factory
+2	17.		72.13		x6tence
+2	18.		69.68		TyLoo
+4	19.		64.30		Defining Stars
E	20.		62.12		NEXT

If you are wondering which events were included in the making of this ranking, here is a list in 3 levels (although there are in fact 9, but we merged them for displaying purposes).

If you have any questions about the ranking, feel free to ask in the comments below and of course stay tuned to HLTV.org for the January 2012 update which is coming soon.