Welcome back to the Team Beyond HCS Power Rankings! The transfer period is over and two of the eight Pro League teams have made a team change, and there are only three more weeks of Pro League left to play. Most importantly, CLG dropped their first series since January last week (more on that later)! Lets jump right into the performance spreadsheet and the personal and aggregate power rankings.

#1 Counter-Logic Gaming | SnakeBite, Royal 2, Frosty, Lethul

Trending: — | Record: 5-1-0 (48-10)

After Thursday night’s HCS Pro League games, the Halo community was stirring with excitement. On one hand, they had just witnessed one of the craziest and closest series of Halo played in recent memory between CLG and Team EnVyUs. On the other, CLG actually looked beatable after nV narrowly lost the series after being up 45-40 in an Eden Slayer game five (of a best-of-five series). Then, it happened. In their Friday night Pro League series against Enigma6, CLG finally lost their first series since the X-Games finals on January 31st. What we learned this past week is that CLG most certainly can bleed, but one Pro League loss doesn’t undo months of dominance and CLG still reigns at the top.

Check out an example of CLG’s dominance in an episode of Beyond Rewind!

#2 (TIE) Team EnVyUs | Mikwen, Pistola, eL Town, Rayne

Trending: — | Record: 3-2-1 (33-27)

This week Team EnVyUs finds themselves sharing the #2 spot again which is in all likelihood a circumstantial product of Enigma6’s win over CLG. Had that win not occurred, nV would have very likely taken over sole ownership of the #2 spot after sharing the spot last week with Renegades. Nevertheless, the quality of nV’s performance this week speaks for itself. They beat Enigma6 in a scrimmage (9-5) prior to their five game Pro League thrillers against CLG (2-3) and Evil Geniuses (3-2). EnVyUs then finished up the week by avenging a scrimmage loss from earlier in the week against Team Liquid, besting them 8-4 after losing 6-8 previously. On Friday, nV will get another shot at CLG in what should most certainly be everyone’s “Match of the Week”, and it will be very telling to see how both teams adjust to what they saw from each other just a week ago.

#2 (TIE) Enigma6 | Huke, bubu dubu, Cratos, Shooter

Trending: ▲2 | Record: 4-2-0 (32-29)

When you become the first team to beat CLG since January, it’s hard to argue against that team being slotted right into the #2 spot. That argument is even more solidified when that win comes amidst a four series win streak to finish off the power ranking period, including scrimmage wins against previously #5 ranked Evil Geniuses (7-5) and #2 ranked Renegades (9-5) as well as a rather quick and painless Pro League win against OpTic Gaming (3-1). This week Enimga6 have Team Liquid and Evil Geniuses on their schedule, and losing either of those two series would be detrimental considering they only sit one series ahead of EG and Renegades in the Pro League standings.

#4 Evil Geniuses | Snipedown, Roy, Lunchbox, Suspector

Trending: ▲1 | Record: 2-4-1 (22-33)

Evil Geniuses had a rather strange week to say the least. The kicked off the power ranking period with a scrimmage win against OpTic Gaming (5-2) and expected losses to CLG (1-10) and Enigma6 (5-7). EG then went on to somewhat “upset” Renegades on Thursday night with a 3-0 sweep of the previously #2 ranked team, but then went on to lose a scrimmage against the same team later that night (1-6). On Friday night, EG narrowly lost a five game series against Team EnVyUs (2-3), and then split a scrimmage against nV days later (5-5). Evil Geniuses will have Enigma6 opposite of them on Friday night, and a win there could really help them in the standings category and in the power rankings.

#5 Renegades | Ninja, Commonly, Victory X, Penguin

Trending: ▼3 | Record: 2-4-0 (26-27)

Renegades drops a whopping three spots in the power rankings this week all the way down to #5. They started the week off with a scrimmage win against Enigma6 (8-5), but then had the win undone later in the week with a loss in a rematch (5-9). Similarly, Renegades got swept by Evil Geniuses in their first Pro League match of the week (0-3), but then avenged that loss in a convincing scrimmage win that same night (6-1). However, Renegades neutralizing their key losses doesn’t erase their Pro League loss to previously #8 ranked Allegiance (1-3).

#6 Team Allegiance | Contra, PreDevonator, Ryanoob, Heinz

Trending: ▲2 | Record: 2-0-0 (6-2)

Allegiance finds themselves up two spots after officially dropping Goofy and picking up former eLevate member Heinz. The team played only two series this week (their Pro League matches), but made the absolute most out of them. On Thursday night they 3-1’d Team Liquid, who also were coming off of a team change during the transfer period. Then on Friday, Allegiance stunned previously #2 ranked Renegades with another 3-1 scoreline. As a result, Allegiance finds themselves not only at the #6 spot in our power rankings, but sixth in the Pro League standings and only one series back from fourth place. Allegiance have EG and a rematch against Liquid in the upcoming week of Pro League action, and winning either of the two (if not both) could be help them continue their climb up the standings.

#7 Team Liquid | Spartan, Stellur, Eco, Danoxide

Trending: ▼1 | Record: 2-3-0 (18-27)

Team Liquid was the other Pro League team to make a team change during last week’s transfer period, picking up Danoxide in place of Assault. Liquid started off the week with a scrimmage win against #2 ranked EnVyUs (8-6), but that win was undone later in the week with a scrimmage loss (4-8) to the same squad. Liquid failed to capitalize on a chance to secure two wins against two teams that were previously ranked right below them, and instead opted for a split between their two matches (1-3 vs. Allegiance, 3-0 vs. OpTic). All in all, Liquid will in all likelihood be playing in the relegation/promotion matches at the conclusion of this season unless they some how turn it around.

#8 OpTic Gaming | Maniac, Ace, Str8 Sick, aPG

Trending: ▼1 | Record: 1-3-0 (3-25)

OpTic Gaming finally drops to the #8 spot after desperately clinging on to the #7 spot for the past two weeks. They accumulated just three map wins during the entirety of this power ranking period (3-25), which is good for just a 10.7% map win rate. Outside of Allegiance, OpTic Gaming had by far the least amount of games played as a team, with five out of the other six teams not named Allegiance nearly doubling OpTic’s total maps played. OpTic has the tough task of trying to steal a series against #2 ranked EnVyUs and/or #5 ranked Renegades in Pro League this week, but in all likelihood, OpTic will be playing in a relegation series in the near future.

And that wraps it up for this week’s power rankings. As always, if you would like to discuss our power rankings make sure to head over to our forums!

Photos courtesy of primarily David “Sandman” Doran; make sure to give David a follow on Twitter!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What are the power rankings based on?

The Team Beyond Power Rankings are intended to reflect how the power rankers believe the top eight teams in the world would stack up against each other in a LAN environment, given every team’s performance in the past week in scrimmages, online tournaments, and LAN events. Imagine the power rankings being our way of answering the commonly asked question in sports, “If the playoffs started today, how would teams do?”.

Why do you include online scrimmage results in your data?

We believe that any available metric that allows the power rankers to evaluate a team’s recent performance is useful. However, the power rankers do put much more weight on LAN event and online tournament results, with obviously the former being the most heavily weighted and the latter being the second most.

Why do the power rankings only use the most recent week of data?

The power rankings being weekly allows us to strike a balance that allows them to be persistent and intriguing as opposed to overabundant and meaningless. However, although the data that is used is weekly, general trends over time are considered such as a particular coach consistently contributing to better performance on LAN or general LAN performance trends (both good and bad) by particular players.

Why did you guys give ________ the #__ spot?

Sometimes the power rankings can yield somewhat surprising results. Often you will find vast differences in opinion amongst the power rankers, and variance can lead to a lower aggregate score compared to a team that receives a consistent ranking around the middle. Also, the nature of power rankings can be rather subjective despite their dependence on raw data. Different people can interpret the same data very differently, which can lead to a lot of variance.

How does the aggregate scoring work?

For each power ranking, teams are awarded points based on the rank they receive. #1 is worth 8 points, #2 is worth 7 points, #3 is worth 6 points, etc. After all the rankings have been submitted, each teams’ points are aggregated into a total, and those totals determine the final top eight ranks. For example, if a team receives a #2, #2, #3, and #4 ranking they would receive 25 points (7 + 7 + 6 + 5).