Team Ranking: May 2018

After a busy month with two premier international events, DreamHack Masters Marseille and IEM Sydney, May was headlined by the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, in Dallas, where Astralis won the title in convincing fashion after beating Liquid in the final, lifting their second trophy since signing Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif.

The StarSeries i-League Season 5 event drew down the curtain on what was an exciting month. With Astralis and FaZe nowhere to be seen, it was Natus Vincere who came out victorious after a 2-0 clean sweep of NRG, one of the big winners of this monthly update.

Astralis remain at the summit after Pro League victory

There were also several medium-sized LANs taking place all over the world, most notably two DreamHack Open events, in Tours and Austin, topped by North and Space Soldiers, respectively. Elsewhere, BIG won the ESEA MDL Global Challenge, in Leicester, while SK finally broke their title duck at the four-team Adrenaline Cyber League event, in Moscow.

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 June 4, 2018, which goes more in-depth into how the points 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 May 7, 2018.

Rank	Team	Achievements	Form	LANs	Total points	+/-
1.	Astralis	500	200	300	1000	-
2.	FaZe	426	122	161	710	-
3.	Natus Vincere	340	160	183	683	+1
4.	MOUZ	312	112	113	536	-1
5.	Liquid	214	82	103	399	+4
6.	fnatic	199	38	151	387	-1
7.	SK	250	65	57	373	-
8.	Cloud9	196	47	65	308	-2
9.	NIP	134	68	73	276	-1
10.	North	112	80	54	246	+4
11.	NRG	77	75	51	203	+7
12.	Renegades	95	63	40	198	-
13.	Gambit	95	52	47	194	-3
14.	TYLOO	72	69	37	178	-1
15.	HellRaisers	63	51	36	151	+1
16.	AGO	47	75	22	144	+5
17.	GODSENT	35	88	19	142	+2
18.	Space Soldiers	56	43	27	126	-1
19.	Heroic	48	44	26	118	+1
20.	Virtus.pro	59	20	24	104	-5
21.	AVANGAR	23	58	14	95	+16
22.	OpTic	25	34	23	83	+20
23.	Envy	25	37	14	77	-1
24.	Rogue	10	45	15	70	+6
25.	G2	54	0	13	67	-14
26.	Grayhound	14	42	11	66	-2
27.	Fragsters	15	31	16	63	-2
28.	BIG	14	40	6	60	+3
29.	MVP PK	22	19	14	55	-6
30.	eUnited	5	46	4	55	+4

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

1. Astralis

Player	Age	Rating
Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz	22	1.29
Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander	22	1.28
Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif	20	1.27
Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen	25	1.26
Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth	22	1.14

The Danish team keep their spot at the top of the pile after another successful month that saw them lift another piece of silverware. After finishing second to FaZe in Sydney, Astralis made sure to remind everyone who the best team in the world is right now with a dominant campaign in Dallas.

At the Pro League Finals, Astralis topped their group with convincing victories over OpTic, SK and Liquid, hardly breaking a sweat in any of those matches. A 2-0 beating over FaZe then followed before they repeated their performance against Liquid, even though this time around the series was not nearly as easy as the first one had been.

Pro League title was Magisk's second with Astralis

Back-to-back ECS wins over Gambit saw Astralis claim an impressive 17-1 record in the league. They will travel to London later this week for the ECS Finals with the wind in their sails, though wary that their closest rival, FaZe, will have two chances, in London and Belo Horizonte, to mount an assault on the first place in the ranking.

2. FaZe

Player	Age	Rating
Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač	21	1.30
Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard	23	1.10
Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen	28	0.97
Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács	26	0.96
Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer	26	-

FaZe, just like Astralis, were very selective in their events for May as they skipped StarSeries after attending the Pro League Finals, where they could not repeat their success from Sydney.

The European mixture was off to a great start in Dallas, with convincing wins over Cloud9 and MOUZ, but a 0-2 loss to Natus Vincere threw them to the quarter-finals. FaZe bounced back by dispatching SK, but then they fell flat against Astralis in a one-sided series.

FaZe were nowhere near the title in Dallas

Towards the end of the month, FaZe announced that olofmeister was back on the starting line-up, reclaiming the spot that had been filled by Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström - another roster change that cost the team a considerable chunk of points in the ranking.

It was the news that many fans had been waiting for, but it may take some more time for olofmeister to return to action, after Flickshot.fr's Guillaume "neL" Canelo claimed that the 26-year-old will miss the ECS Finals due to personal issues. Despite attending at least one more event without their full line-up, FaZe will be confident of at least keeping their second spot in the ranking, especially as neither Natus Vincere nor MOUZ will be at the upcoming event in London.

3. Natus Vincere

Player	Age	Rating
Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev	20	1.33
Denis "⁠electronic⁠" Sharipov	19	1.21
Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev	21	1.12
Ioann "⁠Edward⁠" Sukhariev	30	1.04
Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko	30	0.92

More than five months into the year, Natus Vincere finally have a title to their name in 2018. After finishing in second place at the StarSeries Season 4 event earlier in the year, the Ukrainian team redeemed themselves and did one better at last week's tournament, picking up the trophy after dismantling NRG in a one-sided final.

But Na`Vi's road to the title was anything but easy, with the team making it out of the Swiss stage only in the fifth round following defeats to TYLOO and MOUZ, and then having to work extremely hard to beat SK and Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong's men in the playoffs.

Na`Vi finally won their first trophy in 2018

Earlier in the month, Natus Vincere had looked like solid contenders for the Pro League title after topping a tricky group that included FaZe and MOUZ, but then they were surprised by Liquid in the semi-final stage.

With a title finally in their hands, Na`Vi can now focus on finding some consistency, especially online. But with no ECS Finals or ESL One Belo Horizonte action on the horizon, the Ukrainian team will find it very hard to hold down a spot in the top three, even if they manage to come out on top of the medium-sized CS:GO Asia Championships, in China. 

4. MOUZ

Player	Age	Rating
Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný	26	1.18
Miikka "⁠suNny⁠" Kemppi	23	1.15
Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool	18	1.08
Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong	28	0.98
Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk	22	0.88

MOUZ move down one spot to fourth after being leapfrogged by Natus Vincere in the table. Despite playoff finishes at the Pro League Finals and at StarSeries, mouz had to surrender their spot on the podium after finishing behind Na`Vi in Dallas and Kiev.

After struggling for form in May, oskar returned to his best level in Dallas, where he helped MOUZ to survive a tricky group before they were eliminated by eventual runners-up Liquid in the first round of the playoffs. In Kiev, where they had been so happy before, mouz had to settle for a top-four finish after falling short to Natus Vincere in a keenly-contested three-map series that could easily have gone their way.

mousesports are out of the podium

It is now two months without a title for MOUZ, but they still have to be happy with what they accomplished in May. At both tournaments, they were eliminated by teams who would eventually reach the final, and still slid down one spot in the ranking despite respectable finishes. But that's the life of a team fighting for the top places...

Having finished in a disappointing seventh place in ECS, MOUZ's players will watch the London event from the comfort of their own homes. This makes ESL One Belo Horizonte all the more important for chrisJ's side, who will be looking for at least a final appearance as FaZe are the only attending side sitting above them in the ranking.

5. Liquid

Player	Age	Rating
Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski	20	1.18
Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken	18	1.15
Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic	20	1.09
Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella	22	1.03
Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo	23	1.02

The North American side are one of the big winners of this month's update and re-enter the top five after finding success at the Pro League Season 7 Finals, where they contested three of the four maps in the title decider against Astralis after beating two teams sitting above them in the ranking, MOUZ and Natus Vincere.

However, things did not go quite as planned at their next LAN outing, in Kiev, where Liquid could not advance from the first round of the playoffs after being defeated by North American rival NRG, whom they had comfortably beaten on the first day of the event.

Liquid have moved into the top five

Liquid are one of the few teams who will be at the two premier events of June, the ECS Season 5 Finals and ESL One Belo Horizonte. It will be very hard to improve upon their current placing, but they will at least hope to cut the distance to MOUZ, who will also be at the Brazilian tournament.

6. fnatic

Player	Age	Rating
Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson	25	1.05
Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim	24	1.03
Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell	23	1.00
Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist	24	0.93
Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström	27	0.90

Roster changes and no LAN action see fnatic slip out of the top five for the first time since March. Having finished in a disappointing 11th place in the Pro League, the Swedish sides could not qualify for the LAN Finals, and they were one of the teams who declined invites to StarSeries.

Before the end of the month, fnatic made a surprising roster move, replacing Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson with Xizt, who had been playing for FaZe on an interim basis.

The former NIP in-game leader will have a baptism of fire as he will make his first appearance at the ECS Finals. The event will certainly come too soon for the Swedes, but they will still be looking to overthrow Liquid, who are just 12 points above them in the table.

7. SK

Player	Age	Rating
Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David	23	1.14
Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga	26	1.07
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip	20	1.04
Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo	27	1.01
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass	21	1.01

The Brazilians remain in seventh place after failing to go beyond the first round of the playoffs in Dallas and Kiev, which overshadowed their title campaign at the small-sized Adrenaline Cyber League. 

SK's players certainly breathed a sigh of relief after winning the event in Moscow; any other outcome would have been startling, considering that it had been almost two months since the team added Stewie2K to their roster.

SK still have a long way to go to return to the No1. spot

In Kiev, SK gave a great account of themselves in the Swiss stage, cruising to a 3-0 record after beating VG.Flash, AVANGAR and Liquid. Unfortunately for them, they got the short end of the stick as they were paired with Natus Vincere in the quarter-finals - a tall order for coldzera's men, who still took a map off the eventual champions.

SK now have a few more details before Moche XL Esports, another event they are widely expected to win. After that, they will be travelling to Belo Horizonte to compete at an ESL One tournament, where the stakes will be much higher, especially considering they will be playing on home soil. Missing the ECS Finals is obviously a blow for the team, but they will have the chance to redeem themselves at the ESL One event and pick up some precious points to move up in the table.

8. Cloud9

Player	Age	Rating
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta	21	1.24
Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik	22	1.23
Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham	24	1.01
William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba	24	0.94
Pujan "⁠FNS⁠" Mehta	26	0.91

Cloud9 keep falling in the rankings almost half way through the year, unable to find stability and live up to their full potential. This month, the North American team lost two positions in the rankings, going down from sixth to eighth.

Since IEM Sydney, the only event Cloud9 attended was the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, where they went out to Heroic in the Group A lower bracket semi-final. They had been sent down there by FaZe in their opening match, making the first round loser bracket bout against Sharks the only match they won in Dallas.

FNS will attend one more event with Cloud9

Having finished second in the online phase of ECS, Cloud9 will have a chance to try and start bouncing back later this week in London, but with it being FNS’s last event under the Cloud9 banner, chances are the team will struggle in a tournament with four of the five top 5 teams in the world.

9. NIP

Player	Age	Rating
Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner	20	1.14
Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg	29	1.12
William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin	22	0.98
Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman	27	0.93
Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund	28	0.89

The ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals were a big blow for the Swedes, who lose one spot in the ranking compared to last month. In Dallas, NIP ended 13-16th after three maps lost, one to SK and two in a best-of-three series against OpTic.

In Kiev, the Ninjas fared much better, making it out of the best-of-three Swiss stage with a 3-1 record by beating HellRaisers, TYLOO, and North, although they eventually got knocked out of the tournament in the quarter-finals after losing the decider map to MOUZ for a 5-8th place finish.

May was a disappointing month for the Ninjas

Having ended on the wrong side of a tie for 4th place in the ECS Season 4 Europe online league, NIP will have to wait for the CS:GO Asia Championship, which will be their next event and is the only one scheduled for them so far in June.

10. North

Player	Age	Rating
Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså	22	1.15
Daniel "⁠mertz⁠" Mertz	19	1.14
Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye	20	1.13
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup	22	1.05
Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen	23	0.97

North were on verge of falling out of the Top 15 last month, coming in at #14 in the last update. This month, they slide back into the Top 10, albeit just barely, on the back of two good LAN results at DreamHack Open Tours and StarSeries i-League Season 5.

The Danes won the title in France in a tournament they kicked off by beating Imperial and Envy in the best-of-one group stage matches. They then beat Gambit and HellRaisers in the playoffs for a clean 4-0 record to take home the title, dropping only one map all tournament long.

North are a team on the up

In Kiev, North were no slouches, making a 3rd-4th place run despite going all the way to the last round of the Swiss group stage where they beat GODSENT to go through 3-2. In the playoffs, North beat the red-hot AGO, 2-1, before losing to the tournament’s eventual runners-up, NRG. Online, North topped the closed qualifier for ESL One Cologne to earn a spot to play at the Cathedral of Counter-Strike, in July.

11. NRG

Player	Age	Rating
Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold	18	1.15
Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte	20	1.13
Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov	18	1.09
Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina	23	1.05
Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele	24	0.98

Coming in at eleventh is NRG, who managed an incredible leap from last month's 18th place, landing right outside of the top 10. The North American side started the month by finishing in an expected 9-12th place in Dallas, where they went out in the group stage to MOUZ.

NRG then went all the way to the final of StarSeries i-League Season 5, after taking revenge in the playoffs on Liquid and North, to whom they had lost in the Swiss group stage. CeRq had some breakout performances in Kiev with the AWP, helping NRG to a second place with good showings against Liquid (1.19 rating) and North (1.38).

NRG impressed everyone in Kiev

This week, NRG will have the ECS Season 4 Finals in London to prove they have what it takes to become a Top 10 team and carry their good form from StarSeries i-League Season 5 into a tournament that will have Astralis and FaZe among its attendees.

12. Renegades

Player	Age	Rating
Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad	24	1.12
Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage	22	1.04
Noah "⁠Nifty⁠" Francis	20	1.02
Karlo "⁠USTILO⁠" Pivac	24	0.96
Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward	25	0.95

Renegades hold on to their #12 spot in the ranking, the same they had in last month’s update following IEM Sydney. This time around, they played both the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals in Dallas, Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović’s last event with the team, and the StarSeries i-League Season 5, in Kiev.

The first of the two, ESL Pro League Season 7, saw Renegades make it to the Group B lower bracket semi-final after an opening loss to Space Soldiers and a two-map victory over Grayhound before falling to SK, making it a 9-12th place finish.

In Kiev, Renegades started with two losses to GODSENT and HellRaisers, but were able to bring their record to 2-2 with wins over Gambit and Virtus.pro. Their shot at the playoffs came down to beating NRG, but it would eventually prove impossible for them to beat the North American side—who went on all the way to the grand final—, making it a 9-11th place finish. As it stands, Renegades have DreamHack Summer slated for later this month to try and improve upon their 12th place.

13. Gambit

Player	Age	Rating
Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov	22	1.09
Abay "⁠Hobbit⁠" Khasenov	24	1.07
Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev	28	1.05
Rustem "⁠mou⁠" Telepov	26	1.03
Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov	29	0.93

Gambit keep falling in the ranking after losing the last spot in the top 10, which they occupied last month, moving down to 13th with a roster change that puts mir in the line-up in lieu of Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin.

After a tempestuous ECS Season 5 Europe, in which Gambit finished ninth, the Kazakh-Russian team went to Tours to compete at DreamHack, where they reached the semi-finals. There, they lost to North, the eventual winners of the event.

Gambit looked well off the pace in mir's LAN debut for the team

They followed DreamHack Tours up with a best-of-three loss to SK in the single elimination playoffs at Adrenaline Cyber League. After securing a spot at ESL One Cologne via the online qualifier, Gambit traveled to Kiev with mir on tow for the first time, although he was unable to give the team the boost they needed as they went out in last place following three straight losses to AVANGAR, Virtus.pro, and Renegades.

14. TYLOO

Player	Age	Rating
Hansel "⁠BnTeT⁠" Ferdinand	22	1.12
HaoWen "⁠somebody⁠" Xu	22	1.11
Kevin "⁠xccurate⁠" Susanto	20	1.10
Hui "⁠DD⁠" Wu	23	1.09
Ke "⁠captainMo⁠" Liu	29	0.92

After a massive five-place leap in the ranking last month, TYLOO lose one spot this time around, with captainMo unable to play at StarSeries i-League Season 5 due to injury. TYLOO were unable to qualify for the CS:GO Asia Championships, losing to rivals VG.Flash in the consolidation final with Lei "⁠bottle⁠" Mao standing in. They then lost a golden chance to be at ESL One Cologne, falling to BOOT-d[S] in the best-of-five final despite a one map advantage—this time with Yue "⁠AE⁠" Yu filling in for captainMo.

Their only LAN of the month came at StarSeries i-League Season 5 and was one more entry into TYLOO’s string of bad results since captainMo's injury. The Chinese-Indonesian team, with AE on board once again, lost three straight matches to MOUZ, NIP, and GODSENT after their opening victory over Natus Vincere, going out in 12-14th place with a 1-3 record.

15. HellRaisers

Player	Age	Rating
Özgür "⁠woxic⁠" Eker	19	1.25
Issa "⁠ISSAA⁠" Murad	21	1.24
Vladyslav "⁠bondik⁠" Nechyporchuk	24	1.08
Kirill "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow	28	1.06
Bence "⁠DeadFox⁠" Böröcz	23	0.98

HellRaisers sneak into the last place of top 15, making it back on the list after falling off in the previous monthly update, thanks to the newly-announced roster changes that made G2 dip all the way down to 25th from 15th.

HellRaisers failed to make it to the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, but made up for it with a final appearance at DreamHack Tours after beating the likes of Envy and GODSENT before falling to North in the final. At StarSeries i-League Season 5 HellRaisers went out with a 1-3 record, their only victory being over Renegades, making it a 12-14th place finish for them. 

HellRaisers back in the top 15 at G2's expense

After winning three straight matches in the closed qualifier for the CIS Minor, HellRaisers assured themselves of a spot at the $50,000 tournament, where they will be regarded as a clear favourite.