We're excited to introduce our new CS:GO team ranking that will aim to maintain a fair and frequently updated ordered list of teams starting from this month onwards.

In the past we featured two different CS:GO team rankings – a monthly point based one that lasted until March 2013, and a more subjective top 10-only ranking created by Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen and Petar "Tgwri1s" Milovanovic that was last published in December 2014.

After a lengthy break we're now back with a new version, which is this time here to stay. And once again we are turning to a point based system as we teamed up with Julien "topeiko" Hottias who developed a mathematical ranking that you may have seen in our blog section over the last few months.

The 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 the last 10 LAN events.

All of that is predicated around a 3-man core each team is required to have in order to retain their past points. Online matches and tournaments are included, but with a diminishing factor which means they cannot make a big difference among the top teams, and mainly serve to put new teams on the map.

We prepared a special page where you will always be able to find the latest version of our ranking:

Here is the current top 20 table as of October 1st, 2015, which goes more in-depth into the way points are distributed.

Rank Team Achievements Form LANs Total points +/- 1. fnatic 500 266 186 952 - 2. TSM 400 300 147 847 +1 3. EnVyUs 369 267 200 836 +1 4. Virtus.pro 411 234 167 812 -2 5. Natus Vincere 310 121 88 519 - 6. NiP 249 102 92 443 +1 7. Cloud9 200 72 85 357 -1 8. G2 99 153 67 319 +3 9. dignitas 129 104 54 287 -1 10. mousesports 122 84 65 271 -1 11. CLG 131 71 58 260 +2 12. Luminosity 99 99 45 243 +2 13. FlipSid3 105 69 41 215 -1 14. Liquid 69 104 36 209 +4 15. Titan 66 70 64 200 +1 16. E-frag.net 55 95 30 180 -1 17. HellRaisers 74 59 41 174 -7 18. Renegades 67 9 31 107 -1 19. Vexed 50 25 32 107 +5 20. CSGL 41 42 2 85 -

We'll now take a closer look at the world's top teams and how they fared in recent past, explaining some of the placings in the process.

1. fnatic

After triumphing at ESL One Cologne in August, olofmeister & co. didn't manage to win any of their two events in September, finishing 3rd-4th in Dubai and 2nd at Gfinity Champion of Champions.

That caused them to lose some points and it exposed their vulnerabilities as they lost big series to two different teams, Virtus.pro and EnVyUs respectively. Though they did get a best-of-five win over TSM earlier in the month at the Fragbite Masters Champions Showdown, so they kept at least one of their challengers in check.



fnatic sits on top of our new ranking

The Swedish squad still reigns as the world's number 1, but they will have to get back to trophy-winning ways in the next few months if they want to stay on top because the next three teams are breathing down their neck.

2. TSM

While fnatic still have by far the best achievements (points from tournament placings), TSM have been slightly more active and notched up more wins over top teams in the past few months which sees them topping the Form column and grabbing onto the 2nd place.



TSM settling back into 2nd place

The Danish squad scored a 2nd place finish at ESL ESEA Invitational Dubai during September, as well as 2nd place at DreamHack Open London. They also added one of the bigger available online prizes to their bank accounts by winning $23,750 in the 4-month long Counter Pit League ahead of Virtus.pro and EnVyUs.

3. EnVyUs

EnVyUs gathered the most LAN points over the last 10 notable events, having won IEM Gamescom back in August, DreamHack London and Gfinity Champion of Champions in September, as well as finishing 2nd at the last major, ESL One Cologne.



EnVyUs are the biggest team on the rise

Their title winning campaigns were particularly impressive due to the fact they beat both TSM and fnatic in the grand finals of the two September events. On the other hand, they underperformed in Dubai, where NiP got the better of them in the group stage, but despite that they are still the team on the rise.

4. Virtus.pro

Virtus.pro also gained points in September and they rank second in achievements which is in big part thanks to winning the biggest event on show last month, ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational.

Despite that, they were still leapfrogged by the Danes and the Frenchmen by a small margin as other than Dubai, Virtus.pro finished 4th at Gaming Paradise and lost to EnVyUs in the Gfinity semi-final.



The top 4 is so close even Virtus.pro could attack the #1 spot in the near future

However, it's important to note that the difference between these 3 teams is so small that during the month they each held the 2nd place at some point, and any next event could see either of them reclaim it or even steal the number one spot from fnatic.

5. Natus Vincere

Natus Vincere only managed to lose points last month, having finished shared last in Dubai with losses to TSM and Titan.

They did notch in a 2nd place finish at Gaming Paradise, but the tournament's prestige bottom-rocked due to the circumstances surrounding it so it didn't bring many achievement points, and they failed to win it anyway despite going in as main favorites.



Na`Vi have been getting further from the top lately

It was rumored that the team was looking to make roster changes during the past month, but they denied that and instead gave the in-game leading duties to the team's coach Sergey "⁠starix⁠" Ischuk in hopes of getting back to winning ways.

6. NiP

In spite of the rumors that the team is seemingly stamped with an expiration date, NiP actually climbed back to 6th place thanks to a semi-final run in Dubai and a good showing at Gfinity where they took fnatic to the 5th map.



Ninjas in Pyjamas still may have some fight left in them

By the looks of it the Ninjas will finish off the year in this composition, but they will need a lot more good showings to break back into the top four.

7. Cloud9

Cloud9 lost the most points during the last month, mainly due to the fact that most of their achievements came over two months ago. Still, the 3 consecutive grand final appearances and a semi-final at CEVO Season 7 are enough keep them in 7th place despite finishing last in Dubai.



After a big summer run Cloud9 are slipping down

The North American team also managed to score some points at DreamHack Stockholm as they qualified for the major, but they were expected to do so anyway so that didn't improve their stature.

8. G2

Former Kinguin squad, now under the G2 banner, advanced 3 places up the ranking all the way to 8th and is now very close to Cloud9.



G2 is looking like the most likely candidate to break into the top echelon

The main reason for their rise has been the team's form as they managed to defeat higher ranked teams on several occasions in September (such as Natus Vincere in Slovenia). On the other hand, they were also docked some points due to the lineup change that saw Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom exit and rejoin Titan.

9. dignitas

At the start of September the Danes of dignitas made a lineup change, bringing in znajder, and already in their LAN debut at DH London they made it to the semi-final.



The youngest team in the top 10 is still on the lookout for a big win

They followed that up with the major qualification at DH Stockholm, and have been looking better online recently which all set them up with 9th place in our ranking.

10. mousesports

Mousesports also went into the month with a change in the roster, having brought back NiKo into the starting five.

A 5th-6th finish at Gaming Paradise was nothing to brag home about, but they did play quite well in Stockholm where they topped their group ahead of Liquid and Renegades to secure a spot in Cluj.



gob b's new lineup is yet to prove itself

Nevertheless, neither mouz nor dignitas recently showed prowess to take down some of the bigger names ranked above them, so they will have a tough task should they wish to move up the ranking.

11. CLG

In September CLG added a regional title to their collection by beating Luminosity at WinOut $20,000 tournament and qualified for DH Cluj by topping their group, which saw them climb up the ranking to 11th place.

They've also been the team with the most stable lineup in the 8th-15th range as it's now been almost 4 months since the signing of jdm64 which also saved them from losing any points that way.

12. Luminosity

While the Brazilians have two consecutive top 8 finishes at majors, they haven't attended or achieved much else all year long.

In September they were defeated by CLG at their only LAN, WinOut $20,000 Championship, and by Liquid in the iBP Fall Invitational online. Still, the team remains one of the most successful ones in NA which allows them to hang on to their placing until the next series of LAN events rolls around.

13. FlipSid3

In their first month fully rid of Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, FlipSid3 managed to make it through a major qualifier for the 3rd time this year, but they weren't very active otherwise.

The ESWC semi-finalists still have the same core as they did throughout the year, but the different lineups they attended events with mean some of their points are lost and puts them in a dangerous 13th place with several teams looking to jump ahead of them.

14. Liquid

The addition of Hiko revitalized Liquid who also grabbed a spot at DH Cluj by besting the Australians Renegades twice in Stockholm.

While the US squad didn't attend any other LAN events in September, they did grab a few notable online wins over their regional rivals, taking down Luminosity to win iBP Fall Invitational and qualifying for PGL Season 1 Finals over the Brazilians as well.

Unlike most teams around them, they will have a chance to score some meaningful points at PGL Finals before going to the major, but they have their work cut out for them with fnatic, Virtus.pro and TSM in contention.

15. Titan

Ex6TenZ's Titan actually gained points in September thanks to solid showings at DH Stockholm, Dubai and Gaming Paradise, but in general they have been without notable achievements for a while now.

Completely revamping the team's core also didn't help, as with the addition of ScreaM, the team has now lost all of its points from the first half of the year as only two players remain from the roster that kicked off 2015.

The new roster has only showed its teeth in Stockholm where they bested SkyRed and HellRaisers to top their group, so there's still a lot of proving left to do.

We also prepared a graph showing the evolution of teams' points throughout 2015.

You can see which teams round up the Top 20 over at our dedicated Team ranking page, while in the future we plan to expand the list to a larger number of teams when we implement the entire point system in our website.

We will continue updating the ranking on a weekly basis over at the dedicated page, starting from next Monday after the PGL Season 1 Finals, while we will post a bigger update at the end of every month in form of an article like this one.