McCl0uDY’s Rants NA CS:GO Top 10
Ranking
With the
departure of ESEA-NEWS and their power rankings, a ranking system for NA does
not appear to exist. Thoorin of course has his world top 10 which is
comprehensive and accurate and if you’re looking for the 10 best teams, you
should go there. However, I reside in NA and I try and follow the scene closely
and therefore am taking of the cause of a NA top 10. Flame on.
Ranking system:
Teams with
offline wins be ranked before any online achievements: Offline (international)
> offline (domestic).
Due to not
all of the top 10 teams having offline wins, online achievements will need to
be considered: Offline/Online qualifier (for international offline event) > ESL/ESEA
> CEVO > Face It > other online league
#1 Cloud9
With little
surprise Cloud 9 ranks number 1 on this list. Their recent success is way above
any other team competing in NA CSGO E-Sports: http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=188&teamid=5752&statsfilter=2053
Breakdown: Cloud9’s success is still
heavily reliant on shroud’s and skadoodle’s performances so when these two are
having off games, the team suffers. Occasionally n0thing can fill that void but
not on a consistent basis like skadoodle and shroud9. Also Freakazoid has been
a work in progress (inconsistent performer) ever since he joined C9 but his
attitude and willingness to do whatever Sean says is reason enough to keep him
on the squad.
Cloud9 needs to work heavily on
their T-sides (on any map not named cache). Since C9 regularly bans Mirage,
C9’s long term success will determine whether they can get better at T-side on
inferno, train and overpass.
Speculation & discussion: When swag gets unbanned he’ll move to
starting and Sean will take up the coach/calling position. I thought for a
while that Freakazoid was swag warmer but with the coaching position becoming
more relevant in CSGO, it makes most sense to have Sean call and swag do the
fragging. Hltv stats:
Player
|
K-D Diff
|
K/D
|
Rating
|
Swag
|
416
|
1.18
|
1.12
|
Sean
|
-525
|
0.87
|
0.87
|
#2 CLG
Quite a
few people said that when CLG lost Ptr, they would go down in flames. However,
I believe this is quite the contrary. CLG has produced some quality wins
(fnatic, Keyd and liquid) and they are certainly doing better than Ptr’s team (Mythic
/ ex-Luminosity). They picked the best player available (jdm) albeit through a
ridiculous process (open/public tryouts… really?). But with these results, they
are the second best team competing in NA:
Breakdown: CLG plays aggressively. When this is done with masterful
execution, the opposing team can become traumatized, causing lopsided wins. The
problem is CLG for a majority of the time lacks this masterful execution. They
are not a virtus plow (Virtus Pro) or fnatic; they are a minor league version
of those two teams. To lesser competition there are lopsided wins for CLG. But
for stricter competition there are generally loses. CLG was able to surprise
fnatic on mirage at the ESL/ESEA finals but that was a bo1.
Looking at the lan stats above, on all of the
maps they played, when CLG gets the first kill, the lowest percentage they have
of winning the round is 65%. However when CLG loses the first player, their
round win percentage is no higher than 26% and as low as 7% (other than a
lopsided train win vs liquid).
Speculation & discussion: CLG would benefit from a coach whose
expertise revolves around strategy and execution. A trend I’ve seen watching
CLG matches is jdm getting 2-3 kills in rounds that CLG loses. While this is
helpful in not letting the opposing team’s economy become a Swiss bank, at a
certain point these multi-kill rounds need to occur in rounds that CLG wins
(especially when playing teams ranked in Thoorin’s top 10). Until this happens
CLG will stay ranked within the top 3 in NA and not ranked at all on the world
top 10.
#3 Luminosity Gaming
(Formerly Keyd Stars)
While the team is originally
Brazilian based, their entrance to the NA scene last season in season 1 of
ESL/ESEA Pro league places them in this ranking. Breaking news: Since they have
now been acquired by Luminosity and will ultimately be moving to the lan house,
they are officially a NA team now. These past few months have not been as
favorable for this new LG team. They had a good online run in ESL/ESEA until
they were ddos’d. They were still able to recover and receive the second seed
in NA but other than a win over TSM (where TSM essentially lost the game
letting Keyd (at the time) execute without strategies without resistance) at
ESL/ESEA finals, LG hasn’t produced offline. I’m not giving LG/Keyd credit for
taking fnatic to OT on train at that event because they had a lopsided loss
16-5 against fnatic.
Breakdown: If we go back further than the past 3 months LG/Keyd had
success at ESL One Katowice and MLG Aspen (as Kabum). But what matters is what
have you done for me lately.
What was kind of exposed with the
LG/Keyd win vs TSM and subsequent losses vs other teams after, is that if teams
disrupt LG/Keyd’s strategy execution, LG/Keyd do not win. This is something LG/Keyd
has to address immediately if they want to breakthrough to the elite and get
ranked in Thoorin’s top 10. Before the ESL/ESEA lan finals I was prepared to
rank LG/Keyd number 1 in these rankings due to their previous offline wins and
their execution based style but clearly they are too reliant on execution and
need to be able to change things up when an opening arises or the other team
becomes aggressive.
Speculation & discussion: Personally, my biggest questions
about LG revolved around their management. I was not a fan of how the hades departure
played out. Going on the ESEA forums and counter flaming individual posts is
not how an E-Sports enterprise should conduct themselves. However, it appears
management may have learned from this. The LG post explaining what was
happening with the new LG/Keyd and old LG team was right on the money. If
you’re an E-Sports enterprise you should release a public statement and move
on. If another public statement needs to be made to clarify things, make
another but do not quote specific users. To do so is a lose, lose.
#4
Team Liquid
Team Liquid is here because there
are really no other NA teams (that haven’t already been listed) that have
competed in offline matches as much as they have. For a while it looked like
they were putting things together (two bo1 wins vs fnatic & navi at Gfinity
Spring and overall improvement in their online matches) but every offline
showing since Gfinity Spring has been quite unfulfilling.
Breakdown: There’s really nothing to say here other than this is a
tale of two teams. Online they can beat any NA team on any night. But offline,
they sputter. From my perspective the team has potential. Adren is a good
in-game leader; his awp can be effective and he understands that execution is
critical to success. Nitro and fugly are solid/nutty fraggers and Elige can go
on some sick streaks (out of those 3 nitro is the star). The remaining spot is
where the questions start.
Speculation & discussion: I don’t enjoy saying this but
flowsick has to go. The team results are proof enough. His rating is well below
his teammates (other than adren who gets a pass for calling). http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=173&playerid=1328&statsfilter=2053
Honestly the timing for Liquid
couldn’t be better. Nihilum just cut its CSGO team leaving Hiko on the market.
From my understanding Hiko wanted adren on his dream team anyway and adding
Hiko would immediately add a serious clutch and lurk factor to the team. If
Hiko demanded Semphis tag as well, I still think it would be a good idea.
Semphis has international offline experience and that is extremely valuable. He
also is very good at keeping his team hyped and energetic. We all know lans can
be long and jet lag plays a factor when traveling but Semphis keeps everyone
alert…
Since Semphis joined Nihilum and
focused purely on fragging, his numbers are vastly improved: http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=173&playerid=1915&statsfilter=5
But if Semphis came to the party
whose spot would he take? In my opinion it would be Elige’s spot. He doesn’t
have as much experience and appears streaky. I would be in favor of Team Liquid
moving Elige to the backup role as I believe that is an underdeveloped spot on
competitive teams. Just about every offline event, one team has to use a
fill-in because some circumstance came up. For online matches, just about every
series one player has internet issues. Having a 6th player who knew how
the team played and the strategies that would be used would ensure there wasn’t
a huge falloff when one of the starters was absent. Just food for thought.
#5
Tempo Storm
This is right about the point I’d
place Mythic/ex-Luminosity but their issue is that they've attended recent
offline events but haven’t done anything at these events. Also Maximum
Effort/ex-Nihilum (who also could be placed here) hasn't played in offline games
in the past 3 months (other than the recent NA qualifier where they went out
0-2). I know this Tempo Storm line-up only has 2 events under its belt (Cevolan
s7 finals and now ESL NA Qualifier) but they performed surprisingly well at
Cevolan. They got some rounds on VP before falling, beat Mythic/ex-Luminosity
in a bo3 and took naVi close on mirage and an OT win on inferno. NA teams
really compete or beat top EU teams on mirage or inferno.
Breakdown: To be honest I haven’t watched this team much. I’m aware
that this team slowly progressed over its ESL/ESEA Pro league season 1 and
after EU teams ditched CEVOLAN, they made headway on a free opportunity. Really
the team needs more experience. Shahzam was rated as their best player at
CEVOLAN and he needs to continue this trend. Primary awpers need to hit shots
and it appears this is something he was able to do on Tempo Storm but not when
he was on C9. You’re officially on my radar now Tempo, now let’s see if you can
keep improving.
Speculation & discussion: Moses himself sees Tempo pretty much
right where I do (middle of NA team). The only real question is can they go beyond expectations. I
believe they did exceed at CEVOLAN as they realistically should not have beaten Mythic/ex-Luminosity.
But they did so kudos.
Offline results: http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=188&teamid=6118&statsfilter=2053
#6
Mythic/Ex-Luminosity
This team shares a lot of
similarities with Liquid: they can compete online but cannot offline. It’s that
simple.
Breakdown: There’s really not too much to say here other than Mythic/Ex-Luminosity
under performs at offline events. Notice the rating decrease on every single
player when going from online to offline. Apparently that’s the hurdle they
need to overcome.
Speculation & discussion: If Mythic/Ex-Luminosity
can put it together online they should be able to offline. I guess the team
needs further time together to mesh and accept Devilwalk’s calling style and
strategies. I believe there is enough experience on this team that they should
be higher on this ranking but due to their offline results, I could not justify
putting them higher.
#7
Elevate
This is where Maximum Effort/ex-Nihilum
would be had Elevate not come in and taken care of business at the recent ESL One Cologne 2015 NA Qualifier.
Being a new line up that hadn’t competed together offline until this event,
they should have had no business beating Mythic or Maximum Effort. Both of
those teams have more stars and more offline experience. But Elevate did and for
that they earn themselves number 7 on my list.
Breakdown: Offline results: http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=188&teamid=5775&statsfilter=2053&eventid=1809
Honestly this team just needs more
time playing together. A close loss to CLG (16-11) shows they can compete with top
NA teams. As said above they beat 2 middle NA teams and of course they lost
without too much contention to Cloud9 (16-7, 16-5) who is well and above every
team in NA. Just keep grinding guys. Your first showing offline was a success,
now it is time to build off it.
Speculation & discussion: If a team wants to succeed, they need
a fulltime coach and I’m not sure of Elevate’s current coaching situation. From
my viewpoint Elevate’s weakness is not strategy it is in firepower. When they
face the upper teams on this list, their K/D ratios become worse. This is of
course is expected (due to harder competition) but Elevate needs a player to
take over (put up frags) in these matches. Every top team has a player step up
and frag hard in tough matches. Elevate needs a coach that is going to push
this agenda: aim, set yourself up for easier kills and improvise when an opening
presents itself.
#8
Maximum Effort/ex-Nihilum
I’d like to say positive things
about this team but I can’t. We all hoped that Hiko was going to organize a
super team that would bring NA back into international contention. However,
Cloud9 determined that they were going to be that NA super team and that Hiko
was not going to be a part of it. Thus Hiko was left to settle with ex-Nihilum.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, Hiko going to ex-Nihilum was a settle.
Breakdown:
This team won some watches online
in the various leagues they were in but not enough to be invited to the offline
finals. Until the NA qualifier, this team had not even played together offline
in the past 3 months: http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=179&statsfilter=2053&teamid=6098
And of course their performance at the qualifier was terrible: ESL One Cologne 2015 NA Qualifier: http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=188&teamid=6262&statsfilter=5&eventid=1809
Speculation & discussion:
As I
discussed in the Liquid’s section, Maximum Effort should be broken up. When
this happens this will mostly likely move this team down or off this list
entirely but to keep this team together would be a waste of talent for hiko and
semphis. I don’t take enjoyment from saying this but this team cannot compete
in or offline.
#9 3sup/former
affnity
We are now to the section where
this team on the list has had no offline performances or wins. What I life
about this team is that they’ve worked their way through the ranks, made
changes to their lineups here and there and put in a lot of hard work.
Breakdown: I am an overall fan of the additions they made to the
lineup. Both abe and arya add some much needed experience to this young line
up. Unfortunately for 3sup / former affinity, their ESEA-Pro-s1 matches towards
the end of the season were against some of the top teams in the league: CLG,
Liquid, Cloud9 and KeyD. Therefore their win to loss ratio was not as good as
it should have been. But I do believe the team does have what it takes to
compete. Or at least compete near the middle/to the end of the NA top level
competition.
Speculation & discussion: The question here is do they have
enough of what it takes to make an offline appearance this next season. They
certainly have to keep grinding and putting in the work. Only time will tell if
we’ll be seeing them offline. Good luck.
#10
CLG Red
I should probably be putting SKDC
or another online performer here but honestly who cares. This is the final team
on this list and I’d rather rant about female teams in E-Sports and CLG’s
actual success at offline events. At least CLG Red knows how to bring home
championships. Shots fired.
Breakdown: Ladies, first off congratulations on your success in the
female circuit. Both CLG Red (former Ubnited) and Karma have put in work to
keep the crowns in NA. I can’t blame you for competing in the female only
events as the sponsors put the cash out there and it would have been foolish to
not go after it. But now we’ve come to a point where female only competitions
are becoming less frequent and open gender competitions are becoming the norm.
It’s time to literally start competing against the boys.
Speculation & discussion: There is no reason why all female
teams cannot compete with all male teams. Especially when it comes to CLG Red
as they have the experience in playing offline, they know they have to practice
and execute as a team and they’ve already felt the pressure of eyes on them
both via casts and the actual spectators. What I’d really like to see from this
team is getting out of ESEA-Intermediate. This past season they went 9-7. For a
team with as much experience as they have, CLG Red needs to perform better than
that. Records like that make it hard saying that all female teams can even
compete with all male teams.
I was extremely saddened to hear
@brilebe / masq retired from competitive counter-strike as I felt she was one
of the few female competitors that understood what it would take to compete on
the highest level in CSGO. I’m having trouble finding some posts she made about
the issue (found one: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/esl-s-30-000-female-cs-go-tournament-draws-fire-from-pros/0144784
) but essentially she understood that competing vs all male teams was harder but
playing as a mixed gender team was what E-Sports needs. Opponents would argue
that all female teams competing against one another inspire other female gamers
to become involved, which is probably true. However, that concept does nothing
to counter the issue of segregation of gaming, unlike masq’s perspective. There
are no physical restraints in a game. No matter your sex or nationality, you
should be able to compete equally in theory. The only difference is how hard someone
wants to work and how critical do they want to be of themselves.
In my opinion, E-Sports needs
mixed-gendered teams competing together and against each other. It also needs
its top all-female teams competing against all-male teams and having success. I
believe this is the future of E-Sports and the time to begin this journey
starts now.
Thank you for reading, I hope to
have these rankings out once each month. Hopefully each month they will
increase with accuracy and content. If you disagree with these rankings feel
free to comment below and/or write your own. The more people generating content
for E-Sports the bigger the scene will become.
