Team Ranking: March 2018

After a month headlined by two world-class events, StarSeries i-League Season 4 and IEM Katowice, March was dominated by the WESG World Finals, which, despite its hefty $1.5 million prize pool, only featured a handful of top teams due to the tournament's single-nationality rule.

Fresh off winning IEM Katowice, fnatic came out on top of the Chinese event after beating Space Soldiers in a thrilling final, with SK, Cloud9 and EnVyUs among the teams who bombed out early.

mousesports are the big winners of March

Budapest's BOK Hall indoor arena staged the V4 Future Sports Festival, a €500,000 tournament for teams with at least one player hailing from the V4 countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland). Much to everyone's surprise, FaZe could not live up to their status as red-hot favourites as they were knocked out in the semi-finals by Virtus.pro. In the end, MOUZ lifted the trophy - their second of the year - after beating the Polish side in a three-map series.

Two other international events made the news in March: the StarLadder ImbaTV Invitational Chongqing and Copenhagen Games. TYLOO came out on top of the Chinese event after defeating Spirit in the final, while Imperial finished first in the Danish tournament after a long run that began in the BYOC qualifier. 

FaZe remain at the top of the ranking but still lose a decent amount of points, with MOUZ and fnatic in close pursuit of the top spot. SK and Cloud9 are in freefall following poor performances and roster changes, while TeamOne join Imperial as the 'outsiders' to have surged up in the rankings. 

Here's a summary of our ranking for new readers:

Our team ranking is based on teams' achievements over the past year (with severe decay in points throughout each month), recent form over the last 2 months, and performance at offline events in the last 3 months.

Each team is required to have a three-man core in order to retain their points and online results are included but have minimal effect (only affecting 'Form') at the top of the table and mainly serve to put new teams on the map.

Here is the current top 30 table as of April 2, 2018, which goes more in-depth into the waypoints are distributed – or you can check our special page, where you will be able to find the latest, weekly version of our ranking. You can see the lineup for each team by hovering over their name in the table.

Please note that the +/- gain on this table differs from our weekly rankings page, and it is related to the ranking update of March 6, 2018.

Rank	Team	Achievements	Form	LANs	Total points	+/-
1.	FaZe	500	88	284	871	-
2.	MOUZ	342	143	300	786	+2
3.	fnatic	354	115	293	762	+2
4.	Liquid	261	200	257	717	+2
5.	Astralis	279	174	174	626	+3
6.	Natus Vincere	228	103	277	608	+1
7.	SK	388	50	152	591	-5
8.	Cloud9	227	66	220	513	-5
9.	G2	188	48	132	367	-
10.	Ninjas in Pyjamas	165	66	102	332	-
11.	Virtus.pro	120	61	53	237	+8
12.	Renegades	89	67	82	237	-1
13.	Space Soldiers	76	79	73	227	+4
14.	North	108	60	57	225	-1
15.	Heroic	76	66	64	207	-3
16.	Gambit	89	47	44	180	-2
17.	HellRaisers	52	57	50	159	-2
18.	Quantum Bellator Fire	51	4	70	125	-2
19.	Imperial	20	56	47	123	+23
20.	NRG	11	105	0	116	+5
21.	AGO	33	43	29	106	-1
22.	TYLOO	28	44	24	96	-
23.	GODSENT	17	58	19	94	+6
24.	Vega Squadron	38	11	39	89	-6
25.	Windigo	11	57	15	83	+10
26.	MVP PK	24	33	23	80	+6
27.	BIG	27	34	19	80	-3
28.	TeamOne	13	25	39	77	+25
29.	Spirit	16	38	22	76	-6
30.	AVANGAR	10	44	12	66	-9

Here's an explanation of the top 15 teams' history since our last monthly update:

1. FaZe

Player	Age	Rating
Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač	21	1.21
Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard	23	1.13
Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács	26	1.05
Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen	27	1.01
Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström	27	-

FaZe did not have the busiest of months as they were ineligible to compete at the WESG Finals, so they put all their chips on the V4 Sports Festival, hoping to finally get their hands on a title - something that has eluded them since the ECS Season 4 Finals, in December.

karrigan's men had a near-flawless group stage run in Budapest, only losing a map to HellRaisers, but then they were outplayed by Virtus.pro in a series in which they looked well off the pace.

FaZe remain first, but the gap is shrinking

To make matters worse, FaZe were forced to make a temporary roster change, with Xizt coming on for Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer, who is taking a leave of absence due to personal reasons. But while the former NiP in-game leader represents a downgrade in terms of fragging prowess, he could help to revitalise FaZe's tactics, which have come under fire of late.

DreamHack Masters Marseille may come too soon for the European mixture, but they should be much better prepared by the time IEM Sydney rolls around. Despite underperforming, FaZe have been able to keep the No.1 ranking spot that has been theirs since mid-February, but it could all change in April.

2. MOUZ

Player	Age	Rating
Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný	26	1.21
Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool	18	1.10
Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk	22	1.08
Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi	23	1.05
Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong	27	1.02

MOUZ have been a team on the up for several months now, and now hold the No.2 spot in the ranking after picking up their third international title with their current roster.

The V4 Future Sports Festival looked to be a two-horse race between MOUZ and FaZe, but oskar's men were denied the chance to take revenge for the defeat in the ECS Season 4 Finals title decider as the Cancun champions could not hold their own and were sent packing in the semi-final stage. mouz, on the other hand, were the team we have learned to expect, even though against Virtus.pro they were battered on Cobblestone, and Train could have easily gone a different way.

mousesports are within touching distance of FaZe

After struggling to get invites to events, MOUZ have secured direct entry into both DreamHack Masters Marseille and IEM Sydney. Those two competitions will be the team's main focus this month, but they will need to pick up the pace online if they plan to make the finals in Pro League and ECS.

3. fnatic

Player	Age	Rating
Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson	23	1.21
Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist	24	1.17
Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson	24	1.15
Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell	23	1.13
Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim	24	0.96

The Swedish team ended March on a high as they won their first title in two years after coming out on top of IEM Katowice. Still, questions about their future remained as reports linked them with a move for Xizt.

No-one knew exactly what to expect from fnatic when they arrived in Haikou for the WESG World Finals, but the Swedes sent out a strong message when they breezed past Major champions Cloud9 in the first group stage. Despite looking a bit shaky, fnatic still managed to top their next group, and what followed was a convincing playoff run that culminated with a close win against Space Soldiers in the final.

fnatic won their second title in just two weeks

It is now two titles in a row for fnatic, who break into the top three for the first time since August 2016. The next few weeks will give the Swedes more chances to solidify their status as one of the hottest teams at the moment as they will be in action in Marseille and Sydney.

4. Liquid

Player	Age	Rating
Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski	20	1.23
Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken	18	1.21
Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic	20	1.13
Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella	22	1.09
Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes	24	1.00

With no LAN action for them, Liquid move up in the ranking thanks to SK's and Cloud9's misfortunes. The North American team's results throughout the month in the Pro League and ECS were mixed, but, more surprisingly, they were twice stunned by NRG, in the closed qualifier for IEM Sydney and in the grand final of iBUYPOWER Invitational Spring.

DreamHack Marseille will be Liquid's only event in April

Unlike most of the teams around them, Liquid will only have one LAN outing in April, making a good run in Marseille all the more important for them. nitr0's side have been a consistent performer on LAN this year, and they will need to keep this up to avoid dropping down in the ranking.

5. Astralis

Player	Age	Rating
Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz	22	1.33
Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen	25	1.27
Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth	22	1.21
Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif	20	1.19
Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander	22	1.08

Just like the team sitting above them in the ranking, Astralis climb two places at the expense of SK and Cloud9 as they, too, stayed at home in March after competing in Katowice. However, they fared a lot better online than the North American team, winning the online qualifier for IEM Sydney without dropping a single map.

Astralis were on fire online last month

As a matter of fact, the Danes have been almost unstoppable online: they sit at the top of the table in ECS, with a perfect 12-0 record, while in the Pro League they are currently third with nine victories from 14 games. If they can replicate that form in Marseille and Sydney, they will be bound to continue to rise in the ranking, potentially taking advantage of the fact that Liquid will skip the Australian event. 

6. Natus Vincere

Player	Age	Rating
Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev	20	1.45
Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov	19	1.31
Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev	20	1.11
Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko	30	0.94
Ioann "⁠Edward⁠" Sukhariev	30	0.93

Natus Vincere continue their climb this year, edging ever closer to the top five. They're now sitting in sixth place following a rather uneventful month, as they only played online matches throughout March, in ESL Pro League and in the ECS Season 5 Challenger Cup.

In the former league, they won seven out of eight maps, losing only one against Space Soldiers at the beginning of the month. The Challenger Cup, however, saw them miss out on a spot in ECS Season 5 after losses to Gambit and GODSENT in the last stages of the tournament.

Na`Vi hop one spot higher

In the end, Zeus & co. advanced one spot further in the ranking mainly due to lineup changes in SK and Cloud9, two teams who had previously been above them, which caused them to lose a percentage of their points.

7. SK

Player	Age	Rating
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip	20	1.10
Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo	26	1.09
Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David	23	1.08
Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga	26	0.94
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass	20	0.84

The Brazilian squad find themselves outside of the top-five for the first time in over two years, ever since the core of the roster rose up to the world's elite in early 2016. FalleN's team went from unsatisfying results in February to a complete failure in March, which saw SK exit WESG World Finals in the first group stage due to losses to BIG and Russia.

Furthermore, SK forfeited two matches in ESL Pro League last month and lost two more, to NRG and Rogue, which put them in next-to-last place in the league with only three wins from 10 matches.

SK's failure at WESG was the biggest surprise of the month

The results, as well as the loss of Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo, who recently left the team while SK welcomed Stewie2K, cost them dearly in the rankings, as they plummeted to seventh place.

8. Cloud9

Player	Age	Rating
Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik	22	1.25
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta	21	1.20
William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba	23	1.07

Similarly to SK's, Cloud9's ranking took a huge hit last month after a shocking loss to TeamOne at WESG World Finals in Haikou, which eliminated the Americans in the quarter-finals.

Although they're still well within contention for a spot at the ESL Pro League Finals, Cloud9 have also been unable to put their stamp on the league last month, splitting maps with nearly every team they played against in March.

The loss of Stewie2K and Skadoodle put Cloud9 outside of the top five

The departure of Stewie2K and Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham is, however, the main reason for Cloud9's substantial drop. With their lineup unfinished, the clock is ticking, because the next chance to gain back some of the lost ground, DreamHack Masters Marseille, is only two weeks away.

9. G2

Player	Age	Rating
Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire	25	1.15
Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas	22	1.13
Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub	22	1.05
Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt	23	0.99
Alexandre "⁠bodyy⁠" Pianaro	21	0.97

Although G2 haven't moved from their ninth position in February, March proved to be a rather unfruitful month for the Frenchmen, who still played with Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon in the first two weeks before he took his leave and mixwell came into the roster.

NBK-'s side went 4-6 in ESL Pro League, in which the French squad now have 19 points from 16 matches, and disappointed to qualify for IEM Sydney, as Virtus.pro defeated them in the semi-finals of the closed qualifier.

10. Ninjas in Pyjamas

Player	Age	Rating
Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman	27	1.11
William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin	22	1.09
Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg	29	1.07
Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner	20	1.06
Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund	27	0.98

Just like G2, the Swedes kept their position from February after a month filled with online matches. Ninjas in Pyjamas played 10 maps in ESL Pro League, of which they won seven, and are now tied with Astralis in third place.

dennis & co. are participating in ECS, but haven't been nearly as successful there, having won only three maps out of nine since the beginning of its fifth season in mid-March. On top of that, Ninjas in Pyjamas also didn't make it past the IEM Sydney closed qualifier after suffering a close loss to Virtus.pro in the quarter-finals.

11. Virtus.pro

Player	Age	Rating
Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski	24	1.10
Michał "⁠MICHU⁠" Müller	21	1.10
Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński	23	1.09
Jarosław "⁠pashaBiceps⁠" Jarząbkowski	29	1.05
Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski	30	0.96

The Polish side, who one month ago were on the verge of falling out of the top 20, made a great surge, going up 8 places from 19th to 11th. Besides the bad results, part of the team’s fall was because of parting ways with Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas, but this month has seen MICHU, his successor, become part of the reason the Poles are climbing the ranking as he has proved pivotal in his team’s success as of late.

Virtus.pro are slowly getting back into form

Virtus.pro’s biggest achievement came when they placed second at the V4 Future Sports Festival in Hungary. While not a big event in terms of the teams attending, the Poles did put up a show in the semi-finals when they beat favourites FaZe by an ample 2-0 on Cache and Nuke, and barely lost the final against MOUZ in the last round of the decider map. Other than that, Virtus.pro were just shy of qualifying for IEM Sydney after beating Ninjas in Pyjamas and G2, but they fell just short in the grand final to a red-hot Astralis.

12. Renegades

Renegades are tied for 11th place, the spot they held last month, so not much has changed for them. They had a more or less quiet month, grinding online but not playing offline at any event, their biggest achievement being earning a ticket to DreamHack Masters Marseille after finishing first in the closed qualifier with victories over Ghost, Luminosity, and OpTic. Their league play has been average, with three maps won and three lost in both ECS and ESL Pro League.

13. Space Soldiers

Player	Age	Rating
Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş	22	1.40
Buğra "⁠Calyx⁠" Arkın	19	1.16
Ahmet "⁠paz⁠" Karahoca	20	1.12
Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli	27	1.11
Engin "⁠ngiN⁠" Kor	24	1.03

The Turkish team have made a decent leap in the rankings, going from 17th to 13th after an impressive second place at the WESG 2017 World Finals in Haikou, where they lost to fnatic in the final after beating teams like Russia and GODSENT—both on two maps—in the playoffs.

Space Soldiers came very close to winning the WESG Finals

Online, where the Turks are known to grind relentlessly, Space Soldiers managed to get a top-two finish in the Marseille qualifier, earning a ticket to the event after beating Bpro and North, and had an 8-1 record in ESL Pro League.

14. North

Player	Age	Rating
Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså	22	1.10
Daniel "⁠mertz⁠" Mertz	19	1.03
Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye	19	1.02
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup	21	0.99
Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen	23	0.93

North are the first of the two Danish teams that close this month’s ranking update. MSL’s team only lost one position, and are incredibly close to Space Soldiers, as only two points separate them, so the move-down is not all that bad. March was a lost opportunity for the Danes, though, with a 3rd-4th place finish at Copenhagen Games—a tournament theoretically theirs for the taking—after losing in the semi-finals against the heavy underdogs of that match, Imperial.

Also hard for them were falling online to Space Soldiers in the DreamHack Masters Marseille qualifier, and picking up a 5-7 record in ESL’s Pro League.

15. Heroic

Player	Age	Rating
Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer	27	1.11
Patrick "⁠es3tag⁠" Hansen	22	1.09
Nikolaj "⁠niko⁠" Kristensen	19	1.05
Ruben "⁠RUBINO⁠" Villarroel	24	0.97
Andreas "⁠MODDII⁠" Fridh	28	0.91

Rounding out the top 15 are Heroic, the Copenhagen Games finalists that were unable to snatch the title from Imperial’s hands despite taking the first of the three maps with relative ease. In Heroic’s defense, they were playing without their best player, Jakob "⁠JUGi⁠" Hansen, who had been benched earlier in March.

Heroic failed to qualify for the fifth season of ECS and DreamHack Masters Marseille, and have a negative record in ESL Pro League. With the roster unstable and no big LANs on the horizon, Heroic could quickly find themselves outside of the Top 15 as teams like Gambit and HellRaisers are lurking behind in the ranking.