Team ranking: June 2020

More online-only Counter-Strike coursed through the scene in the last month, though this time we saw a larger variety of tournaments at the top tier. While May was largely about the first Regional Major Ranking tournament, ESL One: Road to Rio, in June we got to watch the remainder of the BLAST Premier Spring season, the playoffs portion of DreamHack Masters Spring, as well as the summer RMR events, cs_summit 6 and WePlay! Clutch Island.

BIG make history for Germany and Turkey as they reach the top spot

Following the trend from the beginning of the “online era,” there was no shortage of surprises, as the opening two events in Europe witnessed BIG and Complexity secure their first high-profile titles, with the Germans soon following up with a second. Meanwhile, in North America FURIA was the team to set off with a victory, but in the end it was Evil Geniuses who came back from a dead-last finish at DreamHack and got the most out of the month with consecutive triumphs at BLAST and Summit.

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 July 6, 2020, 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.

Please note that the +/- gain on this table differs from our weekly rankings page, and it is related to the ranking update of June 1.

Below are the five key takeaways from June’s ranking update:

BIG soar after dream month

We have a new number one and it’s none of the teams that have been bickering back and forth for the top spot for the past few months. Like a wild Pokémon that appears out of nowhere and that you don’t take very seriously because you’ve defeated its previous form before, BIG have surprised everyone with their dominant new look as the lineup improvements they made at the beginning of the year, bringing in the red-hot duo of Nils “⁠k1to⁠” Gruhne and Florian “⁠syrsoN⁠” Rische, started to bear fruit.

Beginning June in 20th place of the rankings after a second-place finish to Sprout in the local ESL Meisterschaft, Johannes “⁠tabseN⁠” Wodarz‘s squad had a lot to prove as the stakes went up in the DreamHack Masters Spring playoffs. Though it had been clear from the group stage run that BIG weren’t a team to be trifled with, the bracket stage showed clear growth from the German-Turkish side, who beat FaZe twice with ease and went on to win the tournament after learning from an earlier loss to G2 and reverse-sweeping the French-Serbian side in the best-of-five title decider.

A fluke perhaps, or at least that’s what many wrongly thought, as BIG came back a couple of weeks later and took cs_summit by storm. They lost just two in eight series over the course of the tournament — against OG and Vitality, two teams tabseN and company went on to take out in the final stages of the event, again winning the best-of-five title decider despite an automatic 0-1 start.

Vitality, Evil Geniuses return to old heights

No one had quite as bittersweet a month as Vitality, who have undoubtedly been on the rise in these past few weeks but ended up just shy of two titles as well as the No. 1 spot in the world — by just three points —, finding themselves on the steps to the throne for the second time in a year.

Alex “⁠ALEX⁠” McMeekin‘s departure had hit the Frenchmen hard, as they found themselves on the edge of the top-ten after shaky beginnings with the new kid on the block, Kévin “⁠misutaaa⁠” Rabier, and under Dan “⁠apEX⁠” Madesclaire‘s leadership. Something finally clicked in June, when Vitality reached old heights as they were once again able to compete for titles at BLAST Premier Spring and cs_summit 6, but both times the trophy was just out of reach, with Complexity and BIG prevailing in the two close finals.

The new-look Vitality started to compete for titles

It would have been hard to predict such a trajectory for Evil Geniuses, who had dropped off in similar fashion to the French side and even began June with their second last-place exit within one month at DreamHack Masters Spring. Peter “⁠stanislaw⁠” Jarguz‘s men rose to the challenge, however, winning all but one series against all of their biggest rivals in the region — Liquid, MIBR, FURIA, and Gen.G — en route to back-to-back titles at BLAST and cs_summit, and they enter the top three for the first time in 2020.

Instability finally catches up with Astralis

A storm was brewing in the Astralis camp in May’s monthly ranking after Lukas “⁠gla1ve⁠” Rossander and Andreas “⁠Xyp9x⁠” Højsleth both requested time off to recover from fatigue caused by the intensive regime, losing the No.1 spot to Natus Vincere, but it was only in June that the team truly began to feel the effects of the double departure.

The Danes lost 317 points in the space of a month and dropped down to tenth in the rankings, their lowest since November 2016, which was right after gla1ve picked up the baton from Finn “⁠karrigan⁠” Andersen. They are now a mere 29 points adrift of a top 10 place, and things could still get worse before they get better.

Astralis are at their lowest point in almost four years after gla1ve and Xyp9x took time off

After a disappointing month that saw the team saw the team win just two of their five matches, Astralis are bound for another hit once ESL Pro League Season 11 disappears from the “Recent tournaments” sub-category, next week. It may be a while before we see the Danes back at the top, and there are still more questions than answers on the road to the first post-break Big Event, ESL One Cologne.

Freefall continues for 100 Thieves

The Australian team have been unable to reach the same heights in 2020 as they did last year, when they were more often than not inside the top 10 and even peaked at No.5 for a brief period. Since the turn of the year, 100 Thieves have struggled for form, a trend that began even when LAN tournaments were still happening as they lost both matches at BLAST Premier Spring and then crashed out of IEM Katowice in the quarter-finals.

A fourth-place finish in cs_summit 6 may seem positive at a first glance, but it is worth noting that 100 Thieves only had to beat Chaos (No.39) and Cloud9 (No.20) in order to reach the playoffs. In fact, it has been six weeks since they last defeated a top-15 side (Gen.G for DreamHack Masters Spring in late May) and almost ten weeks since they last took down a top-10 team (Evil Geniuses in ESL One: Road to Rio).

100 Thieves dropped by six spots over June

100 Thieves will return to action right after the player break, in DreamHack Open Summer. It’s hardly the most prestigious tournament out there, but it will be the perfect proving ground for the Australians before ESL One Cologne, where the stakes will be much higher.

Heroic return to the top 20

Things initially looked bleak for Heroic after they dropped out of the top-30 following the departure of Patrick “⁠es3tag⁠” Hansen and the benching of Marco “⁠Snappi⁠” Pfeiffer, but the Danes have finally clawed their way back to where they were before the whole pre-FunPlus Phoenix transfer saga.

They have been constantly improving over the past two months and recently beat some quality sides en-route to a fourth-place finish in cs_summit 6, including ENCE and fnatic (both on two ocasions), also always taking a map in the three series that they lost – NiP, Vitality and OG. With Nikolaj “⁠niko⁠” Kristensen and René “⁠TeSeS⁠” Madsen both seemingly adapted to the team, Heroic can certainly make a strong case for a deep run in DreamHack Open Summer, the only post-break tournament that they currently have in the calendar.

Source: https://www.hltv.org/news/29957/team-ranking-june-2020