Post-Major is always an interesting time and right now we have a whole lot of shuffles, for some teams changing the roster core. There has also been a long period where some teams haven't played any tournaments, because of these reasons we have dropped this edition of the rankings down to 25 teams.

Tier Rankings compiled by Jamie "PalmtopPitbull" Wert (@PalmtopPitbull on Twitter) and Grady Hooker (@GradyHooker on Twitter).

S-Tier Astralis A-Tier NaVi Liquid ENCE B-Tier MIBR FaZe NiP Renegades Vitality Fnatic NRG C-Tier BIG HellRaisers G2 North D-Tier AVANGAR compLexity TyLoo Spirit Furia ViCi Valiance Windigo Heroic AGO

Reasons for Selected Teams (Movement or Roster Changes)

ENCE (+1): ENCE showed us that their run at the Major wasn't a fluke. They seem to be here to stay, at least for now.

MIBR (-1): A lack of consistency and good wins led us to dropping MiBR.

Fnatic (+1): Fnatic has looked impressive recently, including netting a 2nd place finish at StarSeries.

NRG (+1): A 3rd/4th place finish at StarSeries with the new roster gives NRG a spot in B Tier.

North (+1): If North continues the tear of good play they showed at StarSeries, they may find themselves in B Tier or higher.

AVANGAR (-1): Swept by both G2 and Windigo at DreamHack Masters Dallas EU Qualifiers, AVANGAR has work to do if they want to make it back into the higher tiers.

Windigo (Debut): They qualified for both DreamHack Masters Dallas and DreamHack Open Tours the last few weeks, beating some decent teams along the way.

Heroic and AGO has also debuted onto this list with some impressive performances as of late.

Cloud9, mousesports, and OpTic were all removed because of huge shakeups in their rosters. Significant enough that we felt they were completely different teams from the ones that had earned the rankings. Therefore we are breaking from our normal habit of not moving teams due to roster changes.

Explanation of Tiers

S-Tier: Teams you expect to win every tournament they are in. They are the current kings of the Counter-Strike scene.

A-Tier: Teams that can be expected to easily beat teams in the tiers below, and may even upset an S-Tier team once in a while. Regularly makes the playoffs.

B-Tier: Teams that; Have shown recent potential or Former A-Tier teams with recent and extended periods of poor play.

C-Tier: Teams that; Have had decent showings at recent international LANs or Teams that may have dropped off recently, but have historically decent placements and can potentially make the playoffs.

D-Tier: Teams that have appeared at a few international LANs recently, likely via qualifiers, but have not shown skill consistently on the level of the other tiers. Rarely make playoffs if they ever have.

These rules are not exact, and they are not hard and fast. There are always exceptions. If there were not, it would become impossible to rank teams due to the nature of the game.