Team Ranking: October 2020
We have updated our Global team ranking — powered by EGB.com — for October 2020.
There was no shortage of action in October, which had several international competitions, including Regional Major Ranking (RMR) tournaments in Europe, North America, Asia and the CIS. Heroic maintained their stranglehold on first place in the rankings by winning DreamHack Open Fall over Vitality, while FURIA moved to within one spot of the podium after beating 100 Thieves to the IEM New York title.
Virtus.pro prevailed in the CIS region with an emphatic unbeaten run that saw them drop just two maps across seven series, taking advantage of Natus Vincere's woeful run of form. There was also a surprise winner in Asia, where ViCi finished in first place after beating TIGER, who had stunned TYLOO in the consolidation final.
But there was more to October than just the RMR tournaments. With Nikola "NiKo" Kovač nearing a move to G2, FaZe defied the odds to win IEM New York over OG, one of the month's winners, before the Bosnian's departure cost them a chunk of their points.
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 November 2, 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 October 5.
NiP reach post-f0rest peak
The Swedish team climbed to the ninth spot in the world rankings, their highest placing this year and the first time they have been ranked higher than 10th since the departure of Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg in January.
NIP had a disappointing month of September, finishing ESL Pro League in last place, but looked inspired in October after Tim "nawwk" Jonasson returned from his break. The team's AWPer was the second-highest-rated player of the team last month, behind Fredrik "REZ" Sterner, with the duo pushing them to a fourth-place DreamHack Open Fall finish. NIP fell short in BLAST Premier after that, beating Evil Geniuses but losing two competitive series to Natus Vincere.
With many teams in disarray, chopping and changing players, NIP's solid run of form was enough to push them to a high placing, but more will be needed if they intend to stay there. Teams such as Liquid, G2, and Complexity will be looking to reclaim their top 10 spots soon, so Björn "THREAT" Pers's men will have to pick up bigger scalps than those of OG and Evil Geniuses if they want to keep their place in the company of the world's best.
G2 out of top 10 following disastrous run
The French team spent the first six months of the "online era" within the top six of the world and even topped the charts for two weeks in June, but then had two disastrous post-break months. The consequences of only two series victories (vs. Endpoint and Heroic) over a 60-day period came to bite them in October, as they crashed down to 13th.
Despite respectable performances from Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač and Kenny "kennyS" Schrub, who averaged 1.10 and 1.07 ratings respectively in October, G2 won just seven out of the 22 maps played in the last month. Even for a "dead team" who had been expected to make a roster change to bring in NiKo for some time, that is a disastrous record.
The roster swap that has united the Kovač cousins under one roof will most likely see them suffer even more in the short term, both due to the loss of points and the adjustment period that they will need, but there is no doubt that the squad has what it takes to reclaim their spot among the elite, maybe even before the end of the year.
OG break into the top ten
October proved to be a big month for the Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen-led squad, who had been climbing steadily ever since the beginning of their existence at the end of 2019 but had yet to reach the top ten, hovering just below this zone for the previous few weeks. Eleven months after the lineup's official creation, OG have now hit the remarkable milestone, reaching an all-time peak of No. 7 at the beginning of November.
The European team broke into the top ten in the second week of October with their first grand final appearance in the European division of IEM New York, beating BIG and FaZe to top their group with ease before taking down fnatic in the semi-finals. Their run ended there as FaZe came back from the group stage loss to win the event, but the runner-up finish was enough to push Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt & co. to eighth place the following Monday.
OG's inconsistency caught up with them in DreamHack Open Fall, where two losses to fnatic and one to NIP put them right in the middle of the pack in seventh place, but Aleksib's side quickly returned to winning ways in the BLAST Premier Fall Series to close the month in successful fashion. The former ENCE player led by example as his and Mateusz "mantuu" Wilczewski's exceptional performances saw OG pass their group with flying colors, beating Evil Geniuses 2-1 and then Natus Vincere on two separate occasions (2-0 and 2-1).
Nemiga, sAw reach new peaks
Some newer faces also managed to reach new peaks last month, with the Belarussian side Nemiga climbing to 21st place and sAw breaking the top-30 barrier for the first time in the Portuguese organization's history.
The team around Anton "boX" Burko had been stagnating on the lower end of the ranking for months after first finding their way to the 30th place back in June, but in October they finally made another big jump on the back of their impressive campaign in the last Regional Major Ranking event of the year in the CIS region, IEM New York. Nemiga outplaced many of their biggest rivals in the region there, faltering only in the grand final of the tournament, against the insurmountable Virtus.pro.
Meanwhile, for sAw it was mainly a 10-2 streak in MDL Season 35 combined with a lower bracket run in the Flashpoint 2 closed qualifier that helped them get over the hump, picking up wins over three other top-30 teams, Endpoint, forZe, and GODSENT, along the way.
Virtus.pro soar after dream month
The dark days seem to be over for Virtus.pro, who moved up 13 spots to break into the top 15 in the world rankings for the first time since the start of the year. Prior to Monday's loss to K23, Virtus.pro were on a whopping 20-game winning streak in all competitions, winning IEM New York and qualifying for Flashpoint 2 in October.
With no spots in the premier ESL and BLAST competitions, Virtus.pro will turn to Flashpoint as a valuable source of ranking points in the coming weeks. They are the fourth highest-ranked team in attendance and are looking like a strong contender for the title if they keep up their sensational form.
Nathan 'NBK-' Schmitt
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa
Hansel 'BnTeT' Ferdinand
Aleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen
Valentin 'poizon' Vasilev
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Helvijs 'broky' Saukants
Nemanja 'nexa' Isaković
Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg
Rassim 'Jyo' Valijev
Sanjar 'SANJI' Kuliev
Timur 'buster' Tulepov
Chris 'chrisJ' de Jong
David 'frozen' Čerňanský
Aurimas 'Bymas' Pipiras
Keith 'NAF' Markovic
Pavle 'Maden' Bošković 
Mateusz 'mantuu' Wilczewski
Björn 'THREAT' Pers
Andrew 'Kaze' Khong
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
Edgar 'MarKE' Maldonado
Nicolas 'Keoz' Dgus
Issa 'ISSAA' Murad
Fredrik 'REZ' Sterner
Kenny 'kennyS' Schrub
Omar 'arki' Chakkor
Michał 'snatchie' Rudzki
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