Team Ranking: September 2020
We have updated our Global team ranking — powered by EGB.com — for September 2020.
ESL Pro League Season 12 was front and center in September, particularly in Europe, where a host of top teams duked it out in a drawn-out online tournament that resulted in Denmark once again dominating the top of the rankings as Heroic’s third-place finish was enough to take them to the No. 1 spot, while Astralis’ victory put them in hot pursuit of their Danish rivals. Meanwhile, Vitality’s group-stage exit saw them move down to fifth, with fnatic and FaZe continuing to plummet.
In North America, FURIA took the Pro League by storm, winning the grand final against 100 Thieves, who managed to buck their downward trend. The Aussies made the final by beating Evil Geniuses, who weren’t able to extend their tournament win streak to four and ended up moving down two places despite briefly sitting at No.1 halfway through the month. September also saw MIBR disappear from the ranking after their disastrous European sojourn ended up with the team in shambles.
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 two months, and performance in recent events in the last 3 months.
Each team is required to have a three-man core in order to retain their points. Due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, online results, which previously had a minimal effect, now carry more weight as they are also included in the 'Achievements' and 'Recent Events' sub-categories.
Below is the current top 30 table as of October 5, 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.
POINTS
Please note that the +/- gain on this table differs from our weekly rankings page, and it is related to the ranking update of September 7.
Below are the key takeaways from September's ranking update:
Danes take the top two spots in the rankings
Heroic’s consistency since the player break has paid off as they have now reached the top spot in the rankings, while Astralis’ victory in ESL Pro League has put them within 20 points of their countrymen, making this the first time that a top-three has two Danish teams.
Heroic started the season with a second-place finish in DreamHack Open Summer and followed it up with a dark horse victory in ESL One Cologne, after which they jumped nine places in the ranking, from No. 11 to No. 2, leaving the top spot within reach, but it was finally their third place in ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe that got them there. The new ranking leaders proved resilient despite being rocked by the coach bug scandal that involved their skipper, Nicolai "HUNDEN" Petersen, and will have to continue to show that strength as the rest of the field will be targeting their scalp.
Astralis, on the other hand, come from dipping all the way down to No. 17 while rotating players from their extended roster as Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander and Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth took time off on medical leave. But just as he had left with a victory at ESL One: Road to Rio - Europe back in May, gla1ve returned to help his team claim the ESL Pro League Europe title.
Astralis' Pro League run, which culminated in a reverse-sweep in the grand final against a red-hot Natus Vincere, earned them a nine-place leap in the rankings, all the way to No. 2. With recent news of Xyp9x's return to the active lineup later this month, Astralis will no doubt have their eyes on reclaiming the throne, though they will be in for a point hit if they make changes to the starting lineup again.
NAVI jump to third after making Pro League final
Natus Vincere are back in the low numbers of the ranking after dipping out of the top 5 in August with an early exit in ESL One Cologne, which raised questions about their chances for the final quarter of 2020.
Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy’s men did not falter in September, however, winning nine of the 11 matches that they played in ESL Pro League. Natus Vincere dropped only one series to ENCE early on in the group stage before going on to make the grand final, in which they fell to Astralis in a keenly-contested series. Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev was particularly important for the team's performance, ending the 27 maps played with an average 1.35 rating, the highest in the tournament.
Natus Vincere have jumped five spots in the rankings, where they sit at No. 3 with 829 points —133 below Astralis and 41 above Evil Geniuses —, rubbing shoulders with the best of the best. They face a must-win situation in their upcoming RMR tournament, IEM New York CIS, if they wish to keep their high standing as it will be against a field of lesser opposition.
Vitality stumble after consistent run
From top of the list to No.5, Vitality faltered in September as their ESL Pro League Season 12 Europe group stage exit marked an end to a stable run of form. The Frenchmen had finished their previous three events — BLAST Premier Spring Series, cs_summit 6 Europe, and ESL Cologne — as runners-up, eventually rising to the first place in the rankings on account of consistency.
Losses to Spirit, Astralis, Complexity, and critically, MOUZ, ended their Pro League campaign early and caused a dip in the rankings. The French squad was once again relying solely on Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut for the wins as their second star, Richard "shox" Papillon, fell off to a 0.93 rating for the event, looking like a different player than the one who had impressed in ESL One Cologne with an average 1.21 rating.
Vitality's current rank is their lowest since the start of July, and they find themselves in a packed 100-ranking-point area, surrounded by BIG, Evil Geniuses, and FURIA. Dan "apEX" Madesclaire and co. will have enough exposure to top events in October to regain the No.1 spot, as they play IEM New York, DreamHack Open Fall, and BLAST Fall Series in the next month, but they could suffer an even harder hit if they aren't ready for such a demanding schedule.
100 Thieves, mousesports edge back towards top 10
100 Thieves and MOUZ began their recovery in September with deep runs in ESL Pro League after finding themselves ranked 19th and 20th, respectively, at the start of the month.
The Australians ended their streak of early tournament exits by grabbing a Pro League playoff spot and then snatching lower-bracket victories over Liquid and Evil Geniuses to finish second in the North American division, climbing to 11th place in the rankings. MOUZ, on the other hand, took Europe by surprise, outplacing Vitality, FaZe, and fnatic in the groups and finishing fourth after an upset victory over BIG to move up to 12th.
Despite the much-needed uptick in results, neither team is out of the woods yet. The Australian side recently lost coach Chet "Chet" Singh to VALORANT and still has no replacement in sight, while MOUZ are juggling both the AWP role and Aurimas "Bymas" Pipiras' school obligations — and are missing a coach, too, as Allan "Rejin" Petersen has been banned for abusing the spectator bug during his time with Tricked.
The schedule is busy for both teams moving forward with respective Regional Major Ranking tournament coming up and a potential trip to Europe later in the year for 100 Thieves - a period that could make or break the Aussie side.
Gen.G on a downward spiral
Group stage exits in ESL One Cologne and ESL Pro League S12, coupled with the departure of in-game leader Damian "daps" Steele, see Gen.G drop to 24th in the world, the lowest point they have been since the start of May, before they won ESL One: Road to Rio.
Despite their poor placings, Timothy "autimatic" Ta and co. haven't had shocking losses, mostly falling to established North American squads such as Evil Geniuses and FURIA while beating the likes of Triumph and Cloud9 - the latter victory coming with Danny "cxzi" Strzelczyk being deployed as a stand-in.
Reports linking Sam "s0m" Oh with a move to Valorant could see the team missing not only one, but two players, which makes it hard to see Gen.G bounce back to the top 15 any time soon. To make matters worse, the team are likely to plummet further down as they don't have any tournaments lined up at the moment. Having pulled out of the upcoming RMR event, IEM New York, Gen.G could be looking to debut their new roster only in November, in Flashpoint 2, with a big hill to climb in front of them.
Zvonimir "Professeur" Burazin contributed to this story.
Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev
Aran 'Sonic' Groesbeek
Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa
Jonas 'Lekr0' Olofsson
Peter 'stanislaw' Jarguz
Tsvetelin 'CeRq' Dimitrov
Jesse 'zehN' Linjala
Martin 'STYKO' Styk
Kevin 'kRYSTAL' Amend
Pavle 'Maden' Bošković
Sanjar 'SANJI' Kuliev
Timur 'buster' Tulepov
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Janko 'YNk' Paunović
Hansel 'BnTeT' Ferdinand
Sean 'Gratisfaction' Kaiwai
Issa 'ISSAA' Murad
Mateusz 'mantuu' Wilczewski
Chris 'chrisJ' de Jong
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Aurimas 'Bymas' Pipiras
Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Jamie 'keita' Hall
Nicolai 'HUNDEN' Petersen
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