The Power Ranks
It’s been a long break since the last Counter-Strike Major - the longest we have ever seen in the Major Era actually. Then, what a better way to kick off 2017 with one right away? Produced by the league that broadcasted CS:GO on TV in the U.S., featuring the weakest Legend lineup alongside one of the strongest Challenger lineups from the most stacked offline qualifier ever, this Major promises to be one of a kind. Combined with the wild ride that the scene has seen throughout the second part of 2016, the amount of hype that has built as we are nearing the start of the ELEAGUE Major is at an unprecedented level.In an era where you can’t hold anything for certain, the most unstable era CS:GO has gone through yet, where the last ten big tournaments have seen nine different champions and a total of thirteen different finalists, we each have chosen to paint some sort of frozen picture of the relationships of strength between the teams right before the tournament - in short, a power rank. And how to better underline the current uncertainty by providing not one, not two, but three different power ranks.
Ragnarork's Ranking
- Astralis
- Virtus.pro
- SK Gaming
- OpTic Gaming
- North
- FaZe Clan
- Natus Vincere
- GODSENT
- Fnatic
- Gambit Esports
- G2 Esports
- Team EnVyUs
- HellRaisers
- Team Liquid
- FlipSid3 Tactics
- mousesports
The top four seems pretty straightforward to me - Astralis look totally in shape right now with Gla1ve really bringing the extra spark that this team needed and dev1ce maintaining his consistency as one of the best players. It really looks like they’re the most dominant team right now, even if this is quite young. Finals at ELEAGUE Season 2, victory at ECS Season 2, I really think they could at least pull the kind of performance à-la EnVyUs during fall 2015, with a really dominant period right after a change that clicks, including this Major. Beating SK on both its best maps multiple times, Train included, is also a very good sign of the confidence they have built over the past months.
Next are Virtus.pro, a team for which I consider greatly their ability to perform when the stakes are really high. I don’t see them winning the finals, but they’ve become a staple of the Majors playoffs, whatever their current form, and I don’t see this stopping at ELEAGUE. One could argue they lack trophies, but they certainly don’t lack results, with a few finals and semifinals under their belt in the last few months, a testament to their consistency. We’ve seen pretty much anyone on the lineup being able to perform and push the team forward. Strong teams can crumble at majors. VP just don’t.
SK Gaming follow. Despite the lack of results, despite the change with fnx and fox standing in, there’s still too much firepower stacked on this lineup to have just one player like fox be able to bring the team down. After some time with him to prepare correctly for the major, they will be strong enough to reach a high placement, though I wouldn’t favor them against any other team of the top four, should they face in the finals.
The final team of the top four, OpTic Gaming, has been on a blistering run at the end of 2016. I could see them going into the major with enough confidence not to crack on the most prestigious stage of CS:GO, with a red-hot trio of RUSH, Mixwell and NAF. They showed they're not afraid of the very big dogs and that they have the tools to make it work.
Then, as we go downward, it gets harder to clearly put teams in front of each other. North (ex-Dignitas) are next, and despite their slow fall since their EPICENTER victory, they should be considered among the best of the best. The reason for that is that they’re an incredibly hard working team, that benefit more from practice than some other teams. And practice they had barely any in the last months. With the halt of the tournament grind, some rest and good practice, they will be deadly at Atlanta.
FaZe Clan clearly found their missing ingredient: an in-game leader. Karrigan, despite the relative failure of Astralis in 2016, is still one of the few great in-game leaders out there. When you combine him with the sheer power of the rest of the lineup, you get a scary team that has already performed way above the rest of their run throughout 2016 without him. Even though they likely found a better formula, it’s still to be seen if it can make them true championship contenders.
Natus Vincere on the other hand, seem to be looking for that missing ingredient. Seized has not yet developed into a suitable replacement after the departure of Zeus and the coaching rule that effectively removed Starix from actually leading. Guardian has been far from the once great player he was. As times goes on, their win at NY seems more and more like a fluke in the second half of 2016, and they’ll have a tough time in Atlanta against the top teams. They still got S1mple to make sure they won’t lose to the smaller fishes, but they’re in danger against the best.
GODSENT came in the qualifier all guns blazing, and quickly scored a 3-0 to get their Atlanta ticket. If anything, it shows that pronax and Co. have what it take to make sure they’ll be at the Major, and that they can perform when there’s much on the line. That still doesn’t overshadow the losses to Gambit, LDLC, Rogue and even worse, Pride, which are teams they shouldn’t ever lose to with such a lineup.
Fnatic have had a relatively quiet end of the year. They got a pretty disappointing finish in ESL NY where they didn’t reach the playoffs, along with losses to eventual winners at both ELEAGUE S2 and Epicenter. And that’s pretty much it, allegedly because of personal reasons keeping dennis from playing. Other than that, their lineup looks quite stacked. Featuring the old duo of kRiMZ and olof, although not on legendary form, pistol ace dennis, backed by a capable twist also IGLing, and a fresh, rising disco doplan. If anything, this Fnatic is untested, and since they got their ticket to Atlanta thanks to buying back kRiMZ from GODSENT and the Legend spot with it, they’re going into the Major with a lot of mystery around them, as this lineup has yet to really show what they’re capable of.
Gambit Esports have been on the way up recently, winning both APM 3 and DreamHack Bucharest, during which all could notice the meteoric rise of HObbit. Although these weren’t the most packed tournaments, it should still be considered that tournament wins are incredibly good for the morale of a team, and that it could be key going into the major, as Gambit will definitely want to get to the next stage of their progression. They will be a very dangerous team once again, as they’ve been in the past two majors where they got wins over arguably better opponents. They’re the cutthroat team that others should really be aware of, as the Majors are somehow an environment where they can manage to up their game.
G2 Esports have had a roller-coaster of a year, and are somehow back to square one, on par with the days of Titan - able to compete with good teams, yet losing to Heroic or struggling against compLexity in best of ones. Considering that you’ll get to the playoffs through only best of ones this time, this is not going to be easy. The most striking aspect of G2 right now is how shallow their map pool looks like. They’ve slowly lost the strength they had on Overpass, and if they don’t get Dust 2 or Cache, they’re in danger. Combine that with the strong reliance on shox to perform — and ScreaM to a lesser extent — and suddenly they really need a good combination of factors to be able to advance.
Team EnVyUs have been slowly getting back to a better form than their horrible 2016, with structural changes that allegedly improved the team, which is great news for a team that has a long history of systemic issues. These improvements have been way too slow though, and even though SIXER seems to fit better in the team, he looks out of place that high in the competition. Then, a factor that could really play, one way or another, for both EnVyUs and G2, is the reported shuffle that would happen at the end of January. We’ve seen that kind of situation in the past with Liquid, and we know it could lead to a situation where they got nothing to lose, and might end up performing. It could also spell doom for both these lineups, removing the actual hunger to win knowing their team won’t have a future.
HellRaisers finally made it to the major after multiple roster changes and coming close in their last four attempts. DeadFox has been key in that qualification, and he really looks like he can make a difference and push HR beyond their usual results, but in the swiss, that will probably just amount to some damage and then go home with a single, or maybe two victories, in the best case scenarios, should bondik also show up in form.
Team Liquid are far from theirs heights of the first half of 2016 now that s1mple is in Natus Vincere and peacemaker away as well. Liquid are still in a problematic situation with good individual elements, especially EliGE, but a clear lack of a true in-game leader. Nitr0 is supposed to fill that role, but I am dubious as to how it could influence his team-play with EliGE which helped Liquid reach the finals in Cologne. Meanwhile, Pimp has gone off a few times, but hasn’t become a reliable force yet in the Liquid squad. All in all, Liquid is too shaky right now to really be dangerous among the teams that participate in the Major.
FlipSid3 Tactics are there just because of their Legend status in Cologne that they earned at the expense of Ninjas in Pyjamas, in one of the major upsets of this year. While they seem to have benefited from the NiP uncanny weakness to CIS teams, they still aren’t anywhere near contender level, and B1ad3 will have to do wonders again to be able to scrap by better teams with the lineup they currently have.There’s no doubt that electronic is an improvement over Shara, but F3 still sometimes lose to European tier 2 or 3, and that’s just a bad sign for them going into Atlanta. Their win at DreamHack Leipzig looks nice, but the playing field wasn’t anywhere near what they will face at the major. We know FlipSid3 can upset, but miracles aren’t the norm, they’re the exception.
mousesports have been a disaster since their good showing at ELEAGUE Season 1 where it seemed that they had finally found a formula that made them able to compete, notably thanks to their coach kassad. Now, kassad is gone and since then, mouz has looked way worse than even before him, save for two best-of-one wins at ELEAGUE S2, which isn’t much. Other than that, any serious competition seems to just be enough to overcome them, and they seem back to the drawing board for now.
Wonderful's Ranking
- Astralis
- FaZe Clan
- Virtus.pro
- SK Gaming
- North
- OpTic Gaming
- GODSENT
- Natus Vincere
- Fnatic
- Gambit Esports
- G2 Esports
- Team EnVyUs
- Team Liquid
- HellRaisers
- FlipSid3 Tactics
- mousesports
Okay, here we go. Even without the likes of Ninjas in Pyjamas and Cloud9, the Atlanta Major is still one of the most stacked tournaments in CS:GO history. My own power ranking might come up as a very controversial one or, at least, questionable, so let’s build up a heavy defence.
Astralis with their superb performance during the Oakland/Atlanta/Anaheim trinity of the tournaments are the main favourite at the ELEAGUE Major. The old dignitas/TSM/?/Astralis core of dev1ce, dupreeh and Xyp9x performed insanely well in December and with Kjaerbye/gla1ve, the Danish squad has 5 players capable of turning everything on its head in span of a moment. They are the best Train/Overpass team in the world, and one of the best Mirage teams on the planet — the absence of Cobblestone in their map pool likely won’t hurt, considering the lack of the map during the ELEAGUE qualifier.
FaZe Clan, who became a legitimate threat with the addition of a true in-game leader, swept the ELEAGUE qualifier with confidence thanks to based karrigan on Overpass, finally beating OpTic in the process, and look to be one of the dark horses to take the entire tournament. One of the most skilled teams in the world is likely to not have problems in the Swiss system with aizy playing his best Counter-Strike since leaving Dignitas in 2015. Playing almost every map in the pool, which was proven during their Oakland endeavours, karrigan’s team can finally #FaZeUp.
Virtus.pro, who lost to FaZe in Atlanta after uncharacteristic fumble in the clutch on Cache, are still the most dangerous team in the world by a large margin. Capable of playing every map but Dust 2, the old dogs are eager to prove that they’re not going to waste any moment of the fresh new 4-year contracts with the Russian organisation. They’ll be in Atlanta to win.
SK Gaming, forced to play with fox at the event, are going to be a question mark. Yes, having the best player in the world, the best in-game leader and a surging TACO is great, but is it enough to contend for the title? We’ve seen NiP with THREAT and Astralis with gla1ve/zonic being able to advance from the groups before, but in the Swiss system, SK might have a lot of troubles already in the beginning of the tournament with their questionable map pool and Train being permabanned against them by everyone not Astralis. North cooled off post their glorious EPICENTER victory, but MSL’s team should be pretty comfortable in Swiss. A solid map pool should help cajunb and Co. feel comfortable against almost anyone in playoffs and finally make another really deep run in the tournament.
OpTic Gaming had an insane ending to the year, winning Northern Arena, ELEAGUE and getting 2nd to Astralis in ECS Season 2. Adding Cache to their map rotation makes them even stronger in the maps selection, but the team itself still relies too much on the flashy plays. Be it NAF-FLY’s best series of his career against Astralis in ELEAGUE Season 2 finals, be it tarik, mixwell, RUSH or stanislaw — Swiss shouldn’t be a problem for #GreenWall, but playoffs might finally dispel the magic.
GODSENT finally looked like a decent team during the ELEAGUE qualifier which already makes them better than the recent Na’Vi results. With vintage JW, flusha and Lekr0 pulling the weight — if pronax’s magic is going to work once again, it’s going to be in Atlanta. Na’Vi struggled heavily since Valve’s decision to not allow coaches to call in-game and Zeus’s removal. Seized’s performance went downhill; in both Oakland and Atlanta, Natus Vincere looked like a s1mple one-man army. The hot-headed prodigy might win them the title, but GuardiaN and flamie need to step up for that to happen.
Fnatic are coming to the tournament as the question mark. They have played in almost no tournaments except ELEAGUE with Jumpy over dennis, but after all it’s still the insanely skilled old Fnatic core with twist and disco doplan. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see them in top 4. Rounding up top 10 is Gambit Esports. Revitalized after the addition of Zeus, Gambit won Dreamhack Winter after beating OpTic, Cloud 9, GODSENT and Renegades. While Cobble was the cornerstone of their triumph in Jonköping, the CIS squad has proven that they’re perfectly fine with playing Overpass, Nuke or Dust2. One of the most skilled teams in the tournament, Dosia’s Gambit might surprise not just a team or two, but the entire competition.
Both French teams look like they’re on the brink of another French shuffle. G2 Esports were one set of ScreaM’s one-taps away from not going to the Major, barely beating Immortals in the decider, while Team EnVyUs have started 0-2, but overcame the handicap. Both teams were once perfectly capable of winning tournaments, but don’t seem to be very dangerous right now. G2 is too dependent on shox performing on the highest level on the every map possible since ScreaM cooled off by the end of the year. EnVyUs require a lot of good starts to get confidence going for both apEX and KennyS. G2 without Dust 2 is just a big question mark coming to the tournament; nV, on the other hand, need to forget about Overpass’ existence.
Team Liquid’s heroics during the previous 2 Majors featured s1mple playing out of his mind. Now there is no s1mple and while TL’s roster is capable of getting to playoffs, it doesn’t look likely unless they play Nuke against Na’Vi 3 times in a row. HellRaisers have finally made it but shouldn’t go too far. Ange1’s team have beaten mouz, C9 and NiP in qualifier, but even the best DeadFox and bondik’s attempts might not be enough to get to the coveted top 8.
Blad3’s FlipSid3 Tactics, who are seemingly not playing any tournaments but Majors, still got a Bo3 win over Dignitas in Jonköping. What can Flipsid3 do this time? Beat OpTic on Cache? Beat Astralis on Overpass? Lose to Liquid on Train? No one knows. mousesports bombed out 0-5 in Oakland, got demolished by OpTic at ELEAGUE and followed up by qualifying to the Major despite losing to HR in the opener. It might be good enough for NiKo’s team to just compete here, but him, loWel and ChrisJ need to play out of their minds if mouz and their fantastic map pool want to survive the Swiss.
Yamato's Ranking
- Astralis
- SK Gaming
- OpTic Gaming
- Virtus.pro
- FaZe Clan
- North
- Natus Vincere
- Gambit Esports
- G2 Esports
- Fnatic
- Team EnVyUs
- GODSENT
- Team Liquid
- HellRaisers
- FlipSid3 Tactics
- mousesports
I am Yamato, and this is how I see the ELEAGUE Major Power Rank shaking out.
I view the top 3 as a game of rock-paper-scissors: Astralis > SK Gaming > OpTic Gaming > Astralis. SK might be overrated, especially with the stand-in, but the two-time defending Major Champions are not to be counted out. Astralis look to be on form again with more firepower than ever in an era where the other top teams struggle to match them man-to-man. Only OpTic’s insanely aim-heavy style has put a dent in their play, and even then, the teams have traded series in recent times.
Virtus.pro haven’t played in many tournaments, but they never do. Yet, the team always shows up to play its absolute best Counter-Strike at the Majors. Poles have a knack for playing well on the big stage, and this team’s mix of legendary status and unmatched team chemistry is always formidable at the Valve events. FaZe Clan come in next, just outside the top four, but with the observed ability with beat almost anyone above them and potentially usurp their standing. They, along with the four above them, are the teams I view as threats to actually win the tournament.
The next three teams are likely to make Legend status, but probably don’t have the form to win the whole thing. North is the best of the teams and the most likely to make a deep run given their tactical strength and the long amount of time they have had to prepare for the tournament. The period since their EPICENTER win has been a hectic one for the team full of ups and downs, but the break should give them the time they need to recharge and reformulate and come into Atlanta as a real threat.
Natus Vincere, on the other hand, are quickly cooling off. Whatever initial success they may have had after picking up the mercurial s1mple has all but evaporated, and they now regularly struggle in CIS tournaments to beat other teams. The primary rivals in the region, Gambit Esports, are the benefactor of Na`Vi’s roster change. Zeus, the in-game leader, has improved the outlook of the veteran Kazakh squad and all but assured the team’s chances of maintaining top eight.
Entering the bottom half of the teams, the line between them is more murky and less meaningful, but the delineation nonetheless exists. G2 Esports are undoubtedly the best of the remaining teams, having actually won a major tournament against a tough field, but that was some time ago. They, as Team EnVyUs who are a couple spots below them, come into the tournament essentially dead in the water with the rumored roster changes having just dealt the killing blow. Maybe the teams come in and play like they have nothing to lose, but I doubt that will overcome the dysfunction that has led them to making such a big change in the first place.
Sandwiching Team EnVyUs are the two Swedish teams, also of particular note because of their frequent player trading. Neither team is particularly notable or dangerous, but the Fnatic squad is at least functional. GODSENT's dodge of WESG underlines the team’s issues coming into Atlanta: they simply play as if they have lost confidence, and for the former members of the best CS:GO line-up of all time, that’s a worrying sign.
At one point in time, I might have ranked Team Liquid much higher than this. Despite losing s1mple after Columbus, there was a period where it was still justifiable to be optimistic about this team’s future. ESL New York even saw the team pull off what was then viewed as quite the upset. Unfortunately, the months since have put unfavorable context to even that achievement. The team’s steady decline in esteem and its repeated failings to qualify for, much less perform admirably in the biggest tournaments underline its ranking here in the bottom four.
HellRaisers were the surprise of the qualifier, taking upsets over Ninjas in Pyjamas and Cloud9 to advance to Atlanta. The swiss system may give them opportunity for upsets given a lucky map draw, but they are likely outgunned even on their best maps by the better teams here at the Major. FlipSid3 Tactics are the final CIS team at the event, and the lowest-ranked Legend team in most people’s eyes. All three of us agreed they rank second-to-last, a rare moment of agreement.
The consensus last-place team is mousesports, a stunning reversal of fortune for the squad that looked to be so promising earlier in the year. Niko has cooled off dramatically from the form that saw him in the conversation for best player in the world. The rest of the squad has little else going for them - Mouz is a known quantity at the Majors, a team that never seems to be able to put it all together at the right time.